hot rod pause II

Something like Cannonball Run II only slower and hearkening back to L.B. Jeffries of Rear Window. I am having my hot rod pause and have come to realize: how far things are away from each other--to me there is a brutality in distance; and two, there is no place to sit down, another brutality. There needs to be bench building philanthropy. And I am going to go so far as to suggest that there is a cultural bias to liken weak to lazy. These notions have come to me by way of rupturing my Achilles tendon. I was not chasing Hector around Priam's palace but improvising, skipping in fact, had just done some plee-ays, and was for some moments before that a hot air balloon raising myself with a throaty imitation of a gas jet. Then the tendon snapped and rolled up in my calf like a window shade. My surgery is Tuesday. Six weeks more in a 'caste', then physical therapy.

In the ER I was talking to the nurse. I might have been unconsciously like Ivan Ilych metaphorically wanting my legs held up. We talked about lots of things really. I kept her talking. She told me how she deals with the sights of emergencies. "How do you make sense of it?" I asked her. "You don't," she said. "All that is, is good." Yes And I suddenly thought about people like the police, nurses, doctors, people who are with a random public in need and I was in awe.

Jon asked me if I'd thought--as I had been considering what is next, after graduation, grad school, job, etc.--he asked me if after the ER and all that, if I was now attracted to medicine. No. But I am envious of the direct impact that they have on other people's lives, as well as grateful for the care they'd/are giving me. And today, while reading, I have been looking up from time to time and wondering what does writing do.

--quiet aside from being able or not to have large pool built in the shape of hip pocket notebook with a mock pen as the diving board and be well provided with chicken salad--

...but have been wondering if writing comes before or after other events in having an impact on this bounteous human florescence--culture. As thinkers it seems appropriate to entertain at least both possibilities, even to believe them simultaneously; this in a word is tolerance. And I wonder then, to add an even greater focus to the question: how is writing situated in the maintenance of this fragile and first concept--and I think it is vitally situated. Why this is so might speak of (or from) a deeper dilemma--perhaps even the same as that old argument between the absolute and the specific; regardless, communication, an extension of touch.

Today at the orthopedic surgeon's a nurse asked me why I hadn't signed in. "I didn't know I had to sign in," I told her. The words do not at all convey the expression I am sure that I wore, same as a child might have looking up for the familiar but finding tall passing strangers. Bewilderment is amplified in waiting rooms.

Before in the ER, new with crutches I asked were the bathroom was and was told down the hall and then to the left...or right, I now can't remember. As far as that suddenly seemed I tried to make a joke at the nurses station, "by the time I get to the end of the hall I'll probably have forgotten if its left or right." After that I was released and waited for my cab, talked to my Mom on the phone, and realized there was no place to sit down. She said how if she had lots of money somehow I would not have gotten injured because... just because. Then she warned me how plucking nose hairs can be fatal. Why? The news man said so on the radio. But how does that work, I asked. "You don't listen," she told me.

But overall I have to say this experience is exciting. And any change that brings insight is awesome. I am not it pain. And medically, the injury is not serious--reminding me of the important distinction between danger and discomfort. And a world of the formerly injured has opened up to me. Crutches are a great conversation piece. And if I ever felt entitled to blow-jobs now is the time. We'll see how much effort that takes on my part. Meanwhile, the complete works of Balzac, all 36 volumes has arrived--good timing. And also, I have found that it costs a penitence to have groceries delivered--genius! And as a consequence an enormous amount of my beloved bubbly water is on its way--quantities I would never ever have carried up the stairs. The injury in other words, besides casting me into the unknown, the fear, the trust, and realizing the dear compassion of my fellows has also made me wonder if I will ever grocery shop again, which had formerly been one of my favorite places to talk on the phone.

I am also left pondering a metaphor--that as soon as it is realized lends itself to a kind of archeology: the scar, one left by a surgeon. Evidence of healing it hovers on the surface but also signals an earlier trauma. Similar to a tattoo, a surgeon's marks are written across various bodies, and my doctor has left these pragmatic rivulets from Buenos Aires to Chicago, not part of a tributary but shapes specific to the injury--that is, of the covered having been reached--a mending. I wonder in what ways writing is also like this scar, a shape drawn, striking through the surface of water that then remains. These words even, are secondary to a deeper, even a desperate intention: to know, to be known, to reach out, to touch, be touched and share an embrace. To erase the brutal distance of skin and yet preserve feeling. Words. They fall loudly aside like spent shells or broken crutches, legs held up in the air.

r