Life is interesting. When we went back to the surgeon, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was possible he would say I was done, but my wound still looked ugly the last time we changed the bandage. It was also possible that Li would tell me I was making good progress and come back again in two weeks. I’ve been waiting for Li to say I’m done so that I can call the cardiologist and find out when we’re doing the next two stents. Then we can schedule the rest of the summer around the second angioplasty.
If you’d asked me a month earlier, I would have told you, let’s wait on the second angioplasty until after the summer. Let’s get our vacations in. We want to do a New England road trip soon. We want to get up to visit Jim in Maine with some stops going and coming to see Eve, Mark and Nancy, and maybe Duncan.
And then we have a window of opportunity of almost two weeks around the Jewish holidays when Morri will have a break from classes. I was thinking, angioplasty after that, but more recently my thinking shifted. Maybe get the angioplasty over with. Get it all behind me. Let’s not have this hanging over me on another vacation.
All this was rattling my brain when we went to see Li. He pronounced me done, although he’ll see me again in 6 months, mostly I’m thinking, for the laughs and to avoid good-byes. My wound is healed, although it is ugly. I would take a picture of it to show people, but I’m afraid of being accused of sexting. I think it looks like something out of Frankenstein.
The next day, I called Gala, the cardiologist, to talk about angioplasty number 2. Would Gala want to do the angioplasty as early as next week? He surprised me. Wait until the fall. There’s no danger. My body has been through a lot. He wants to give me time to recuperate.
He tells me to enjoy the summer. Just don’t do any heavy lifting. And don’t leave the country.
I’m upset. I’ve been chafing to get back to the gym. I’d just gotten back into resistance training last summer after a hiatus of several years. The return was overdue. I’d been noticing that I was losing muscle tone, even though I was walking a lot. I’d stopped again, caution on my part, once Gala said he wanted to do an angiogram, just to be sure I was okay. His caution was based more on my history than any symptoms. I’d had carotid artery surgery five years earlier. It was a miracle that my 95% clogged artery had been discovered and roto-rootered before I had a stroke. Gala hadn’t told me to quit the resistance training. I’d just figured that if he was concerned enough to take a look, I shouldn’t push it.
Now he’d had his look, and he’d already fixed the biggest problem that he found. Still, I need a couple of more stents, and now Gala tells me to lay off the resistance training. That's a disappointment, but I have to admit to myself and to Dee that what he was saying made sense. My body has been through the mill. I am 81, and I don’t recover as quickly as I did even a few years ago. I know Gala is right. I do increase my chances of coming through the next angioplasty if I give myself some more time to heal, to rest. Psychologically, I need a break as much as physically.
Almost immediately, I can feel my spirits improving. Dee can see it. She says I’m smiling a whole lot more. I’ve gone back to my chores, everything except the lifting. I’m happy to be driving again, even when it’s not necessary.
And I’m enjoying rewriting. That’s the biggest surprise. I’m happily into The Zen Imperfections. I’ll be finished this week. My first detective story has entered a short story contest, and a new short, short story went out to try its luck.
The problem with rewriting is that once I’ve finished the rewrite, the project is almost entirely out of my hands. Whether a book or story or article finds a publisher is up to the Universe. It depends on forces beyond my control. I don’t like the idea of not being in control. Until I finish a piece, I’m still in control.
Why am I so worried about control? I’m not the control freak that I was when I was younger. Maybe it’s not the control. Maybe I just don’t like the idea of being an unpublished writer.
I don’t count the 20 or so professional articles that I authored or coauthored before I retired. I wasn’t a writer then. I was a mental health professional or a social entrepreneur. Writing was not my vocation or my avocation. But now in retirement, I have made writing a principal preoccupation. If I don’t publish, I’m an unpublished writer. When I was younger, “unpublished author” was a synonym for failure.
That’s a reason to avoid rewriting. As long as I haven't finished a piece I’m still in control. So how is it that I’m enjoying rewriting? How is it that I’m enjoying finishing? I am remembering the time when I thought that Bernie might never give me transmission. That’s when Hsiang-yen became my hero. He’d given up all hope of ever getting transmission from his teacher, Kuei-shan, dropped all ambition, and gone off to care for an abandoned temple. Each day, Hsiang-yen meticulously swept the temple grounds. One day, he swept a stone into the air, striking a bamboo, thwock! That awakening thwock had occurred when all hope had been abandoned.
I had decided that I was the Untransmitted Buddha and gone about the business of building our network of charter schools. That’s when I heard the thwock!
Who am I now? An unpublished author awaiting a second angioplasty. An Unpublished Buddha. I am a writer because that’s what I’m doing with a big chunk of my retirement energy. Relaxing into the rewriting while the question of whether anything I write will ever reach an audience beyond my circle of friends or beyond my small circle of blog readers seems to be a wonderful plunge into not knowing.
Is that the joy or is it something more? Is it writing and rewriting between meetings with surgeons? Is it writing and rewriting without knowing how much longer I will be able to write? Hsiang-yen is still my hero. There is huge freedom in just sweeping the grounds. I learned with Bernie to let go of outcomes. I have learned it over and over again on my cushion. I learned it again in the hospital. And yet I am surprised when I learn it again as a writer. Am I Unpublished Buddha?
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