6 September 1994
What did you feel?
You'd have been under, of course; heart surgery is still the cracking open of the fragile shell that contains the core, still the splitting of the envelope, still the hinterland between life and death, where risk and infection and the beckoning light on the other side lay in waiting.
What did you feel?
Was there a moment, something penetrating the fog of unconsciousness, panic, a slipping through of voices, we're losing him clear damn it clear no good and then that damned light?
What did you feel? And for a moment - did you remember me?
9/14/01, University Presbyterian Church, Seattle
At noon the church is jammed with people trying to make sense of a world gone mad. We thought we were early, but are lucky to get seats in the balcony. Soon they’re seating people in the choir.
Halfway through the opening hymn, I notice one of the women in the choir is wearing an I (heart) NY t-shirt.
I am in black. I couldn’t bring myself to wear red, white, and blue. Even in the midst of grief and shock I’m a cynic. I love this country. I’m American to my core. But the people running this country want to use my patriotism to their own ends, so I refuse to surrender it to them.
I am also dry-eyed. I’m thinking, analyzing, speculating. Under stress, I turn off my heart and let my brain take charge. I trust it more.
But when I see that t-shirt I weep and cannot stop.
Susan, this is a lovely drabble. I think the phrase "my superior brain" might alienate a reader, though, unless it was meant to be self-mocking.
I am such a slacker. I can't seem to summon 100 words on any given subject these days. Am working on it.
Hmm. I meant that my brain is superior to my heart, not that it's superior to all the other brains. How to reword.....
t ponders
...and it's edited.
So much better, Susan. The added sentence is very revealing and poignant.
Liese, I love that lyric. It scans like a dream. But I think you need one more verse, since you're starting and ending with chorous.
I liked it too, but perhaps that's like, duh, coming from...well, I would say a cop groupie, but they are such hard-living hard-drinking skanks that that gives me a total wig. And "heart" is giving me a lot of images...we'll see what kind comes up first.
OK, I know this isn't my place, but I'd be psyched if a jock or someone would write a drabble with "the kid's got heart." I just don't have it in me.
The first thing you have to do is get down through the layers. You have to strip it to find the best part. The first ones are the biggest, but still quite a nibble in melted butter(or if your quest for the heart is greater than concern for yours, mayonnaise) I love to bite down on tender green leaves.And this noble thistle, that when it grows has a blossom O’Keefe like and impressive enough to make even indifferent me pause, is not through with surprises. The only vaguely unpleasant part is scraping out the fuzz, which offers the novelty of showing that your thistle-colored crayon didn’t lie, all those years ago.(It really is a pretty purple)
The perfect heart is firm without being hard and soft without being mushy. It’s a pleasure to put in your mouth.
ETA: Hee. This reads like "Sometimes an Artichoke is Just An Artichoke" sort of. What is it about writing about food makes me get sluttish?
