THANKFUL FRIDAY

I heart you

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What is the current state of your heart?

This was a question posed to me earlier in the week at the beginning of yoga class. We were taking our focus to our hearts. Every time I am prompted to focus on my heart, to visualize the state of it, I always picture a living anatomical version. I never picture a cartoon or paper mache version. It is always the real deal, as if I have ripped it straight out of my own chest and I’m holding it in my hand, looking directly at it. I guess I imagine that my own heart is about the size of the palm of my hand. Except when I look at my hands, which are small, I think that my heart has to be bigger than that. Then I start to wonder about the weight of that muscle, what it would feel like to hold that weight in my hand. Yes, I realize that picturing myself holding my own beating heart in all its gory detail makes me sound a bit disturbed. Please remember that I have a very scientific brain. You should have seen how excited I got this week over tissue sections of cavefish ‘eyes’ (they don’t have have eyeballs, only fat cells where their eyes should be, fascinating).

So there I was in yoga class, holding my beating heart in my hand and really studying it and I have to admit that it is not a pretty heart. There are wounds that have been partially sealed up with Frankenstein’s monster like sutures. Some of those sutures have seen better days and are worn thin and frayed, straining to hold together some wound that just doesn’t seem to ever want to heal. There are places between sutures where those wounds sort of gape open, irritably. I mentally give my heart a little shake, tap it with a finger and put my ear to it. I am surprised to discover that my heart sounds better than it looks. I have a Timex heart; it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. The next thing I do, only because I don’t know what else to do, is to mentally re-stitch those frayed sutures and tighten things up as best I can. I mentally clean things up a little before setting that heart back into place. Then I laugh at myself because it’s only during yoga or meditation where I mentally pull out an organ to study. And it always seems to be the heart. It probably wouldn’t hurt to repeat this process with some of my other internal organs. What is the current state of my spleen, for instance.

Sometimes, when I am meditating, I imagine thoroughly sweeping my brain with a broom.

After putting my heart back into place, I can tell you that my heart is holding together just fine. Michael says that I am not allowed to use the word ‘fine’, but it is suitable for now. Despite those unhealed wounds, the muscle is beating strong with a steady rhythm. I only feel a slight ache when I’m still enough to really pay attention and even in my morning meditation practice, my thoughts do not settle into that ache. My thoughts move about randomly as thoughts do. In a sense, I am never really still enough to pay that much attention to it. So I’m going to use the word ‘fine’ describe the state of my heart because it’s not a pretty one, but it is functioning properly. There is maybe even a little flicker of joy tucked inside of it. It seems almost monumental for this to be true for me in these winter months that I tend to hate so dang much. I am grateful for every wound on my heart. I am grateful for every suture holding those wounds together.

I am thankful for the strength and the determination of my heart to continue to beat strongly day in and day out.

MY HEART

It is not as early as it seems when I wake to the sound of rain hitting the window, but the house is still dark. I check the clock. Eight thirty. I sneak out of my bed and into his. I burrow myself into his right side with my head tucked into his shoulder. My hand rests on his heart. I press my palm in and feel the layers, the prickly curly hair on his chest, the warmth of skin below, and finally the thump thump of his heart. I think for a moment. "This heart belongs to me." The thought is not one of arrogance or ownership as much as it is one of responsibility. I lay there a moment feeling the weight of this and then a memory flashes through my frontal lobe. I am sitting on Misti's couch, a coffee mug nestled in my hands while tears stream down my face. And the sadness washes over me. I feel the tears dripping and sliding down onto his shoulder. I let it happen. I take the moment to remember things lost and be grateful for things gained. 

The moment passes quickly. There's a shift and I get up and blow my nose. I make us breakfast and we watch CBS Sunday Morning. We divide and concur the chore list. I take apart the stove and shove it over to clean under it. He comes in to remove the dead mouse I find under the stove. He vacuums. I mop. Between the two of us, we get the house clean and ready for Thanksgiving. I start thinking about when I'm going to bake some pies. He runs through the list of things on our menu, checking to be sure we have all the ingredients. Of course we're missing a couple of things. He goes to the store while I finish up laundry. We eat Planet Subs for lunch. We have sex. We make grown-up Mac-n-Cheese for dinner. We watch TV. That moment from the morning completely passes by as if it didn't even happen. In a way it didn't. Michael was sleeping. He didn't know I was crying into his shoulder. It was such a small insignificant moment, memory. But then I remember. "This heart belongs to me." 

I am hesitant at times. I can shove and push things away with might. No one knows this better than he does. Once, after a particularly bad day, Michael told me that it didn't matter how miserable I was , he wouldn't give up without a fight. He was joking about the miserable part. Or maybe he was joking. He's tenacious. I'll give him that. He wedges in here. Throws his foot in the door there. I've agreed to have Thanksgiving here. The last time Thanksgiving was hosted in this house, Chris and I were new  homeowners and then in a few short months Chris was dead. So yeah...I push and shove. I am hesitant. Timid.

There are two ways to get into a cold pool on a warm summer day. You can jump in and take in the coldness all at once or you can ease in one toe at a time. I'm in about chest deep here. My heart is used to this temperature now.

"This heart belongs to me."