Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, Monday, May 15, 2023
I locate my journal and pull out a pen. Am I wishful thinking? Is there something in me to share this morning? And if there is, do I have the presence and clarity of mind to coax it out? This is all new to me. I named my blog “Dwelling in Presence” with the desire to simply be attentive to life and its colors, all of its various shades and moments. This is a new shade for me. If I had to name it, I think I would call it “Blank”. I can spend hours just sitting and staring. Cups of coffee sit cooling and undrunk. No inspiration there. I am vaguely aware of the birdsong outside. Mom’s owl hasn’t been back since we came home from the hospital, or perhaps I have just not heard it. Yes. Blank.
The visiting nurse is coming this morning. Maybe I need a visiting poet or a visiting shaman to restore the wonder I seem to have misplaced right now. They could speak an incantation over me, and my broken open heart might start working again.
Joel keeps telling me that I am doing much more than I think I am, that my whole body is involved in healing itself. Some of it is visible on the outside where wounds are starting to scab over. Most of it is happening on the inside where a major bone was broken and wired together, vessels were rearranged, and someone elses blood was poured in to keep me strong. I survived for a while on a heart-lung machine while my heart of flesh was getting important upgrades.
Now I sit here looking and feeling essentially blank. With all that has happened, you would think my mind would be firing on all cylinders. My feelings popping. My cup runnething over. But no. My body’s wisdom has caused a certain numbness while I begin to own what happened to me. Of all things I expected to experince after a successful surgery, grief wasn’t one of them. What is my body trying to make conscious in me? What, indeed, have I lost?
There is nothing else to do. Just be.
Dwelling in Presence 
As usual, you ask the best questions! I’m sending love and trusting the process. ((( )))
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Kate – I hope that you are feeling better every day. I will keep you in my prayers. So sorry that you are going through this time when everything does not seem right. I like getting updates on how you are doing. I am remembering all the good homilies you gave when you were at St. Paul’s.
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I wonder could there be grief simply from the hospital experience â which, despite the positive goal and ultimate result, involved not only traumatic injury and shock to your body but perhaps (reading between the lines of your last blog) witnessing and/or enduring further trauma, either because you or someone nearby encountered something scary or painful, or just because of the nature of the procedures and the noisy, fallible, sometimes chaotic hospital setting? I think just the jangliness of all that would need to be healed from, and the healing might take the form of some blank time to integrate all the excess sensory input and make space for the next clear thoughts to form. I recently ran across a quote from John Steinbeck comparing the California coastal fog to a grey flannel blanket. May this blank time become a comforting grey flannel blanket to nestle in the protection of until your body and spirit are ready to perk up again. Much love to you, Leora
Sent from Mail for Windows
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I think its normal for you to feel Blank. You have a new blank page to fill in your life, your new body, your new way of feeling. Its a lot to get your head around. You will though!! Love you, KC
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Kate, I am so grateful to finally be reading your blog and to know you are home and letting your brilliant body do what it is meant to do. Thank you for acknowledging the numbness and grief that often accompany big moments as we wait for the wholeness of us to catch up with the intensity of a recent experience. Always sending love your way! – Amy
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