Not bad for 10 days post-hysterectomy?

Ah… the first real warm day of spring hit Vancouver yesterday, at least for me, finally able to walk several blocks without the risk of tearing internal stitches, so I hit the streets for the first time since my surgery, which was a mere 10 days ago!  My psychiatrist came for a home visit in the morning, (a psychiatrist that makes house calls?!?  ) and while I worried my apartment was a little on the messy side (my dad is a bit of a “hoarder” – later in the day I would throw out many jar lids that I found in a stack and which he could not remember the purpose for ) but psydoc had nothing bad to say – he said he had never seen someone look so good 10 days post-major surgery, and even complimented father and I on our ability to argue without shouting at one another.  As much as I believe doctors should not be held as omniscient creatures, somehow better at knowing what is going on in our bodies than we who inhabit them know, it was great to hear from someone who has seen his fair share of sick, surgical patients say that I was doing better than good.  It has been a long time since I’ve heard someone tell me this, whether it be a teacher, family member, friend, or “professional” of some sort.  Today, on a cloudier morning, I raise my glass of orange juice to positive reinforcement, as I feel even better today – more in control of my withdrawal from hydromorphone, and my outlook for the future which was much less than stellar last week, is downright sunny, now.

So, where did I go?  Figaro’s Garden, of course, my summer “home away from home”  Well, aside from the beach, whether it be in front of the Ocean or at Trout Lake Park, where yes, I swim!  (It’s a little muddy, not dirty!  I’ve gotten pinkeye and a nasty fungal infection on my lip from swimming in some other British Columbian lakes, but never the one that’s smack dab in the middle of East Van, which, come on, is really, really effin’ cool!  So take a dip with me one day this summer, fellow Vancouverites, I dare ya )  Spring arrived very late this year, but somehow I knew yesterday that they would finally have forget-me-nots in stock at my favourite garden store in the world, at least in the very small part of it I’ve seen so far,  yet somehow I doubt there’s any other quite so magickal – at least not on this continent.  They had a special surprise for me today as well – a pot of bamboo for $10!!  Usually the cheapest pot of the world’s fastest growing weed (yes, bamboo) is $60.  Magick garden 2.0, which is kind of “Zen”-themed, is finally complete.  Images of a hypothetical gardening shop in Japan float through my brain, where you can buy seeds to grow square watermelon, and kitty-cat-shaped flowers, and, of course, lots and lots of “Super Happy Love Dahlias”!

Then the neighbourhood wakes me up from my peaceful daydream, but still, I am at peace – for the first time in a long, long time.

“You’re an asshole.”

“No, you’re an asshole.  How can that possibly bother you?  You’re the asshole.”

Indeed, often the show going on outside in this neighbourhood is far, far more entertaining than anything on television ever could be.  I think my favourite episode was when two people, a very… liberated (and teenage and drunk and horny) couple had sex on the sidewalk in front of my old building, all the while being hassled by another woman, who wanted the others to stop so they could all go somewhere together – I’m guessing a late-adolescence parents-away boozefest.  However, my favourite street-television (coined!!  ) moment was back in Winnipeg, in a much different neighbourhood, when a woman saw me, my girlfriend at the time, and a couple of friends watching her attempt to walk down the street (drunks, when one is not drunk oneself, are much funnier when they are three stories below than when they’re up close and personal, kind of like the way a Monet painting is much more beautiful if you take a few steps back), and shouted up to us, “You’re going to die one day!”.

Indeed, death is inevitable.

But right now, a new summer is being born, and the unexpected is seductive (oh so much more than teenage sidewalk sex, straight-up, with a side of “random” yelling, hair-grabbing, impatient friend).  I am reminded of some prose I scribbled down in my journal during my first summer here:

We work like slaves all year for this – a moment in the sun, blinded in gold, past sinks into present tense, the future does not exist. For this golden moment we believe this is true, and it is. But we fumble forward like ants, knowing that this comes, only to pass. For what is life but working towards that perfect moment, working and waiting and then watching its glorious demise; not-quite-touching; satisfied not in its attainment, but in its promise to return.
It could stay like this forever, half empty or half full – both, like always, but shiny, old and new. Your body aches for sleep, but sleep is such a waste of time, and when it comes it comes like sickness and you wake up wrapped in wet sheets, struggling for the surface, birds circle overhead, teasing you with their effortless soaring.

I am excited for my life, again, something I lost in between the discharge from my last hospitalization and my surgery date.  I am so excited for the new.

Now, time to scour my iTunes library!  The music you have heard over the past few months is now available for download under the “Practice of Madness Soundracks” menu page at the very top of the screen, and the sounds on the main page will be changing in a few minutes (if they haven’t already upon your arrival).

scars XO!!