SURPRISE!

So anyway, two years today.  Two years post-transplant.  Feels like a lifetime ago, and kinda like it was yesterday. And even a little like it was 2 years ago.  Ever get the overwhelming urge to weep for no apparent reason?  Like the cosmos just wanted tears. . . from you?  How about the inexplicable urge to laugh? Like you just heard the funniest goddamn thing ever, except you're alone or with someone but nothing particularly funny is happening?  Yet you're laughing. . . in your belly.  How about at the same time?  It's very heady, a sharp sense of vertigo.  Jesus, it's so high up!  You can see for-EVER.  Wind doesn't blow through the sky. The wind IS the sky.  That's me, like, a lot.  Couple times a week.  Start to think, or try to stop thinking and ...what the hell is so funny? What am I laughing at?  Oh, please, what am I NOT laughing at? It's all just a marvel.  A marvel really and suddenly my eyes are blurry and my throat stings and I'm crying like—I'm not crying like anything— I'm just crying.  And laughing.  At the same time.  And very confident in both the happy and the sad and the sappy and kinda tipsy.  And whew.  Will this ever stop?  I hope not.  It's so wild.  It makes me feel like I understand something.  That's what it feels like: understanding something complicated and abstruse and I don't think it can be explained.  Explaining kinda mucks it up.  You have to learn it, you must learn it to have anything remotely resembling a chance, a prayer.  But it can't be taught, which is funny and sad.  Go learn it.  It's like a secret. . .inside a secret. . . inside.

It can't be taught, but I'll try—for you: it's all sound and fury, without meaning.  Which is totally funny: gag's on us.  And it's gonna end.  You're gonna die.  And that's crushingly sad because, yeah, its only sound and fury but it's all we got.  And, but like your death won't mean anything either. That's Funny and sad at once.  It will seem like it does or should mean something, your death, but it doesn't.  It won't.  Not to you anyway.  WOMP WOMP.  Next contestant.  It doesn't mean anything except what you make it mean. Wanna make it mean god?  Go ahead.  Make it mean god.  There are worse things you could make it mean.  Like stuff or money or yourself: stupid fucking vanity, arrogance, hubris, selfishness.  Those would be terrible things to make it about, but plenty of people do, have.  It's your hourglass, you know the way these things work, right?  Sand leaks through the pinch-point.   You can't see the top, above the pinch.  You can only see the bottom, the sand that's accumulated.  But you're on the clock.  Make it mean something.  That's the job.  Make it mean something.  Ever seen a Buddhist sand painting?

There's probably something wrong with the culture or our collective upbringing or just us since we make the culture and raise ourselves.  Something wrong that you gotta go half your life to figure this out.  Or maybe it's me.  Maybe I'm the defective part.   I don't care.  I like that it's flawed or broken or whatever.  Or I am.  It needs work.  I need work.  I'm a fixer-upper.  The demo is done, torn down to the studs, a good plan, a good crew, plenty of money, awesome decorator.  It's gonna be great.  It just might take a while.  These kinda projects always do.

See that right there is what you call a mixed or better yet tortured metaphor.  Evidence of its larger point, however. (things need work, there's always room for improvement, work on them) Which is kinda cool, tortured but self-fulfilling.  I'm letting it stand. I can't really talk about it any more.  I've got too much work to do.

The joy and fulfillment I've known in the last two years are beyond expression.  Thinking about it makes my nose run.  A lot of that has to do with the simple fact that I'm here typing to you.  I know: it's not even that simple a fact, but it's true, I'm here.  A lot of it has to do with the people out there (you) that read this blog or maybe don't really read this blog anymore or never read or will ever read, but are nevertheless my friends, the people in my (and their own) meaning-making exercises.  I want you to know that: that you're responsible for my survival  and my joy and fulfillment.  I am completely ready to die.  I know that sounds like melodramatic or maudlin or too something, but that's how it is (not melodramatic or maudlin, just ready).   I don't want to (die) but I could.  And I've never felt freer or more at peace.  Or more grateful.  Or more fiercely in love.  Did you know love could be fierce.  It can! Raah. (that's a tiger noise.  a love tiger).  I wonder how could it possibly get any better and then the next day comes, better somehow.  Don't know when the sand expires.  Could be sooner in my case--must stay honest about that—but damn, there are no bad days because even the bad days are good days.  really really good.

Just imagine if someone told you to write a poem.  Write a poem, a good one, it will be the most important thing you can do with your life.  It will be the meaning of your life.  It'll be good for you, define you and good for those around you and this is what you should do: write a poem. Give it all you got. This is the key, the poem.  Okay?  Okay, got it.  Poem.  Check.

Except, what's a poem?  That was me.  Embarrassing but true.  I'm still so far.  Oh, golly.  So far from the man, the person, I want to be.  But now I know what a poem is.  I know the person to be, work at being.  I know what meaning is and how to try to make it.  You probably do too.  Hell, you've probably known all along.  You coulda clued a brother in...but don't sweat it.  I'm here now.  Start the party.   Sorry I am so late. I'm a slow learner.  A late bloomer.  Late to my own funeral.  Late to my own (birthday) party.

the finger pointing at the wave is not the wave

Chop Wood Ride Water

For my fourth cab ride with death I flew to Costa Rica.  Playa Jaco, south end.  Low tide.  9'6" foam core glass board, dual fins.  We'd been warned that the ollas were no bueno, but figured even a bad day of surfing beats a good day of fishing.  Surfing is not really an athletic activity.  Athletic components, sure.  But if you can do a burpee you can get on a surf board.  The skill is knowing WHEN to get on the surf board.  Wind, wave, speed, direction....as in comedy, timing is everything.  The more you know, the better you are.  I call this an intellectual pursuit, engagement with. . . nature is a pretty tired word at this point. . .I'm gonna say, the planet:  communion of the earth with its moon.  The sea and firmament and what they make together.  You should care about these things...deeply.  Be aware, however, that these things do not care about you.  Surfing will kill you, or worse.  No man is an island but everyone is a peninsula, bounded on three sides, sky, water, land.  Think what a joy it is to cross the causeways, swim in the sea of sky, the sea of land, the sea of seas.  Spelunking, a plane ride, open water swimming.  It's here we are reminded (taught?) our proper place in the order of things.  We mean nothing.  Gravity doesn't care.  It's got far more important things to do, like fight entropy.  You're gonna die you know?  And the sky will be cobalt, the seas wine-dark, the mountains towering.  Study these things not to bring meaning to your life, but to remind yourself where you came from, where you're going.

But so we'd been warned the waves just weren't coming with any regularity then.  They can be hard to read when the pattern is obvious; take away the pattern and you're playing roulette with forces that turn boulders to sand.  Actually we'd been told it was no good.  Now I know what no good means.  I got on a couple.  A couple means two.  They were breaking at different spots and closing out fast, difficult to stay with.  Every once in a while a a big swell would would look promising but an off shore breeze would stand it up tall, too tall, and the top would just drop, no curl, no break.  Just a terrific jutting up and instant water fall.  Not a backyard koi pond waterfall.  A class 5 rapid waterfall: crashing and pitiless.  Pitiless.  You are not a factor.

Fortune loves the brave.  Misfortune loves the flinching, the double-clutching, the hesitant.  I began paddling for what would turn out to be and attempted murderer wave.  Paddle 1-2-3-4 look behind,  1-2-3-4 look behind.  1-2-3-4.  oh. no no no.  Turn the board.  Not this one.  Starting to get picked up now.  Up or down?  dive underneath or try to squeak overtop?  All the while still getting picked up....overtop,  quick quick quick you can make it.  damn.  Uh.  Oh shit.  NO. WAIT.  Get UNDER.  NO.  Getting off a breaking wave you fall.  You fall OFF the water.  You fall as far as the wave is high.  Six feet, maybe eight.  Go stand on top of your extension ladder.  Jump.

I fell off the wave and in front of my board.  The wave gave me my board in the back, right on the traps.  I heard a crunching noise.  I was inside something unspeakably furious and violent.  My head and hands and feet were going in unknown directions in no relationship to each other.  I had control of nothing but my breath.  I could hold my breath.  HOLD.  HOLD.  My limbs, my thoughts, they weren't mine.  They belonged to the wave.   Very bad, I thought.  Very long I whispered to myself.  I wanted to pull for the top.  I didn't know where the top was.  It didn't matter, my arms weren't mine.  God this is too long.  I remember thinking that. THIS is TOO long.  HOLD!  I gotta come up.  I should be up by now.  Where the fuck is up??!!  Damn.  Awful.  Panic.  Terror.  NO NO NO.  HOLD.  NO.

Breakthrough.  Oxygen.  Half oxygen, half water.  Damn.  Choke.  Gag. Still not great.  Another one.  Not as bad. Whew.  Hold.  You'll be on top soon.  I'm on top.  Coughing.  Why can't I swim?  More seawater.  Jesus my neck.  Pull the leash.  HOLD.  Find the board.  Get on the board.  Another one.  Hang on.  Damn.  HOLD.  Can you stand?  No.  HOLD.  Find the board.  Hold onto the board.  Don't get on it.  Another one. HOLD.  Hold the onto the board, let it push.  You're gonna live. You're alive.

Seriously:  go outside.  Cardinals are singing.  Wisteria is blooming.  Thunderstorms.  Earthworms.  Zephyrs.  Cumulonimbus clouds.  We're alive and it's amazing.  If you're not amazed, you're sleeping.  Wake up.  It's late.