I was clearly shown the path to recovery, but that didn’t mean the path itself would be clear or short. To see it brought palpable relief. This relief coincided with a dozen improvements in my health and state of being, as my system cleared from heavy-duty pain meds. The clearing allowed side-effects of anti-seizure medications to arise – more brambles. As this last med is tapered, things continue to change every day.

I could tell you about each of these symptoms and how they affect me. I could tell you about the insomniac patterns of fear that arise in conflict with the facts around me.

But these are just brambles.

I could tell you about how the last full moon told me that there is no conjuring or drawing forth or earning of goodness. Goodness just is. Just like you cannot stop bad things from happening in life, you also cannot stop the goodness. What is possible, however, is the ability to unsee the goodness. Or see it for the first time.

I could tell you about how the world is experienced through a prism constructed by mental constructs. All senses feed information to our incredible, infinitely mysterious brain and then the brain interprets, based on what it already knows – or what it thinks it knows. Turn the prism just a little bit and everything is transformed. The key I see is in not hyper-designing the right mental constructs. It is in letting go of all of them. It is just to be. Just flow. Allow the unconscious instinct part of the brain, which is far smarter than our consciousness, to dictate our decisions.

But these are just glints of light in the dark passage.

In one sense, we as a culture are fixated on the highs and the lows of the Wheel of Life. On the other hand these points are just mirages. The wheel never stops turning and each cycle is part of a greater cycle, made up of the smaller ones we live through every day.

The truth is, the dark and light are both with us all of the time. Each holds its own precipice to ultimate mystery. The many shades of grey are there to harden our navigational skills. Yet, there is no destination. There is only survival and the choice to love, or not to. We cannot control the path. It is there before us. We make decisions in how to travel the path or which direction to go when the path branches.

There is the Wyrd – the network of paths we are connected to. Then there is free will, our limited ability to alter the paths. How we dance on the network is completely under our control. When we say, “What we put out there comes back,” that is referring to our relationships with the network and other beings on the network, carnate and incarnate. Together maybe, we can alter the paths.

Just another possible light in the dark passage.

I cannot tell you. I cannot draw any meaning from my movement on the path right now, because the meaning will not be gleaned until the long game is through.

I’m in that place underground many of us go to when life is too much. Most folks turn off the phone, which is really healthy to do…or unhealthy if one is completely cutting off their support system. Some do everything they can to avoid going underground by over-socialization or drugs or drink. Some go underground and choose to stay longer than the time that is needed. There are probably lots of reasons for that.

My place underground is a dark room with camping cot and a lit fireplace. I seem incapable of turning off my phone. Plus if I did, people would worry. I am infinitely impressed with how much care I am getting post-hospitalization. At the same time, there is so-o-o much red tape. I wish there were better, human explanations about pain management, drug side effects, the transition to the primary care provider. The 35-page discharge paperwork is stapled into one stack, holds too much information in some areas and lacks information in critical areas. Who can parse that with a brain injury? There are so many bodies involved: surgical team, trauma team, home health team, pcp, hr, state, lawyer – there is no way this will go smoothly. I am on the phone, in the dark, by my fire trying to work through the system. I thought I was supposed to rest.

“The best advocate is yourself”, nurse John told me. I think I know what this means now. Whispers from John and other providers who share their wisdom have created a slight navigational system for me. The hospitals are there to stabilize your body, not to look at your long-term health. The surgeon might have multiple procedures in a row, so it won’t be unusual to feel dehumanized as they get you in and get you out. The real healing starts when you get home.

After listening to why various providers love their jobs, why they left certain areas of the system, I feel a little more validated and empowered. This is not just my experience. I can’t expect anyone to take care of this stuff. I have to be the one that comes up with the questions – whether that is a good thing or not. It’s survival.

Within a few weeks, I’m going be cut loose from home healthcare and I won’t have those kind people for long conversations to help me navigate. So I’m drawing a map with the clues that come in every few days. I’m using my refined IT research skills to study when I have the energy to be online. The map might be burned in the next follow-up visit but I’ll just start it over again.

All big systems will be extraordinary and also deeply flawed. The individuals within the systems can still be precious. It is important to keep a perspective, even after I want to throw the phone across the room.

Here is a credo to write on the sails of my ship but there will be no control over the speed or direction of the wind.

CREDO
Rest
Water
Healthy food
Walks
Gently test the limits of my stamina
Repeat

It is verified. My brain has returned to center. Early mornings, when I don’t feel drunk walking, there are rays of sun stretching through my body. I lay in bed at 4:45 AM and feel like doing a jig. I learned not to do a jig or the energy will be gone by 10 AM.
I wrote that sentence a week ago and today the crash didn’t happen until 11:30am.

Creativity – at its very core – is movement. Healing is like this too, a seedling sprouting in the dark, fresh green revealed in the morning. It’s not something we do. It happens by itself in the blessed magic of sleep. So, like a gentle gardener, I am supposed to encourage and foster and wait but never push. The towering Douglas firs sway as I walk around my condo complex with a cane to assure my balance, their familiar yet holy hugs permeate my body.

I pray that I grow strong in time to return to work.

• Precious card from hospital housekeeper, says, “Everything is changing for the better.”
• Spirit bracelet to protect arachnoid mater layer, which resides next to the dural layer in the brain.
• Sasquatch from the totaled car, hugging a treasure box.
• Treasure box: fragment of safety glass, flower petals from co-workers’ bouquet, staples from my incision, hospital bracelets
• Redwood mist, spirit wolf, spirit bear, water
• Postcard of light and joy from Fanning the Embers, the annual storyteller’s retreat.

From Neurosurgery office.

I’ve entered a world that was there all along without my knowing it. It’s a landscape with few trails, as they keep telling me, everyone’s experience is different. This is why no one can tell me what to expect or how long it will take. Or maybe they don’t want to tell me because they don’t want me to worry. Sometimes I get blank stares when I worry anyways that I will not be able to work when FMLA runs out, and lose my job.

I went back to the ER today because I had a new, sudden symptom. I was so weak and dizzy in the kitchen. I have to sit down in a chair and think a little bit until I realize that I am nauseous too. I am shaking and close to passing out. I take the nausea medication they gave me that I’ve never used (consciously). The nurse on the line tells me to call 911. The EMTs are very friendly and happy to meet me again. I am disturbed about the fact that I have no memory of meeting them. They ask me if I want to go to the hospital and I tell I just want to live.

Side note: I am not displeased with all this attention from three good-looking men in my living room.

Everyone agrees that since I live alone, it’s best that I shouldn’t have to lie here and worry. Worry itself could be bad for my health. See? Not knowing is worry too. My neighbor takes me to the ER. Another angel. I get another CT scan and the black butterfly has moved closer to center in my brain than ever before. I’m getting better. Yesterday wasn’t made up, when I aced the speech pathology cognitive tests and thought I was feeling energy returning.

No one knows why I had vertigo while sitting on the couch on the phone with the nurse. It wasn’t my heart. It wasn’t blood sugar. It wasn’t another brain bleed or a stroke. I am hoping it is my brain recalibrating, because movement is movement and movement is disturbing and the brain does not want to be disturbed. I will see the neurosurgeon in nine days.

The red tape around FMLA is tangled. The red tape in HR is tangled. Yesterday, the red tape around getting pain meds refilled was tangled. The lawyer is probably on vacation because he left his coat here before Xmas and never came back. Managing being sick has become a part-time job and I’m angry that I have to deal with it while recovering from a brain injury. I want to get audiobooks from the library, but I can’t figure out how to fix my library card memberships, so the cards just sit on my side table.

I am frustrated that there is no road map to all these ‘care teams’, so I create a template with questions and things I have learned the hard way, and send it to the hospital as a gift from a degreed Instructional Designer.

I hope everything will be OK, because then this will be a good story for all to read. I shouldn’t say that because of the goodness that has come from all the people around me.

These are the woods I am in.

The owl swoops down and feathers me with her wings. I wake up in the morning and relive conversations or uncomfortable events or the car crash itself again and again, and I breathe. Let the spirits in. I see myself in the crook of a passageway at the base of my skull with my drum. I am opening the way for the Spirits of Kindness to enter. I am witnessing, as any good shamanic practitioner does. And then the next day, all I can do is sleep and try not to worry. The following day, visualizing healing images of the day before may not work. I have to be open to what is here today, around me now.

My cousin and I planned a New Year’s weekend visit long ago and now she is quietly cutting vegetables in my kitchen while I hang in here, waiting for the next time I can take a pain pill. The fire has been going for days. She gets the cozy nest by the hearth, and I get the electric blankets on the couch.

One friend sends a wonderful list of books and another sends a note all the way from Germany, asking how she can help. Now she is hunting down an audiobook for me. When I am alone, a neighbor comes in at 11am every morning to make sure I am still here. Others call throughout the day. I’ve had five different people get me to and from both hospital visits and a doctor’s appointment.

I’ve heard the words:

I am glad you are still here. (so many times)
Thank you for letting me help.
I am thinking of you.
I am giving you space to heal. (because screens literally hurt my head)
Sending love.
Checking in.

And many, many more sentiments. So many have offered interesting ideas in how to manage various difficulties. Each gift means so much to me. Through it all, I get to know you a little more. I get to share intimacy that may have not happened on its own. I get to hear about your lives. I get to learn about love from you.

I am receiving healing, both emotional and spiritual from you, while we wait for my brain to literally reclaim its space, for the arteries in my head to stabilize, for the pain to subside, for me to not need anti-seizure medication any longer.

I am lost in a fragile place. I am very aware that many, many people are living lives far more difficult than mine. I know how lucky I am, and yet I still face my own trials and fear.

My tears well in gratitude, for the drop-ins, the little treats, the prayers, the gentle ears, and for my family.

You hold me in your web of love. It makes me feel worthy.

I’m telling you, I didn’t ask for this. Most major things that happen in life, we can see them coming. Or if not, afterwards it really does make sense why it happened. Not this time. I’m pissed. I worked so hard, so hard to get where I was. So hard. I had a job I loved, a great boss, friends I love, shamanic work I love and a home I love. I even had a brand new activity (doing soundscape for assisted living) flowering in my life and in my heart. And then, I just got swept off the board and set down on an entirely different one.

I thought when I got home from the hospital that recovering would be a walk in the park, a few weeks. But the forest isn’t clearing and every day I discover new things – not only about my limitations but about what happened to me in the past month. I can’t believe it’s been a month. I can’t believe my friend spent five hours trying to figure out what was going on with me and what to do, searching through my paperwork for the right phone numbers to call and labeling all my medications and finally getting the green light from several different parties to call an ambulance. That must have been terrifying, traumatizing. Then she opened up my phone and texted everybody, whether she knew them or not and my mom called the last person who brought me to the hospital and people sat with me for a day while the nurses had a hard time waking me up to give me neuro checks. And then I had surgery and I woke up and now I know why it wasn’t so unbelievable that my brother was about to arrive in two hours from California. Because all that time had passed and I didn’t know it. 

I learned that the brain does not like to be disturbed. The brain says fuck you. No extra blood in my space. No pushing me to the side. No drilling holes into my skull to remove the blood. No going through my arteries to seal them closed. All of those things make the brain angry. So as my wonderful, tender and nurturing acupuncturist says, there is healing from the accident trauma and also from the surgeries. She leaves me on the table, and and it takes over forty minutes before I feel my energy, like magic, come back to center. She invites me to come back the very next day which I cannot do but I will as soon as she’s back from vacation. Because I don’t know if my energy stayed in the center. 

Another friend took me today to get the staples taken out of my head and I don’t think my brain liked that either because my headache spiked. She took me to a park I really wanted to go to and I joked that I’m like a dog being taken for a walk, breathing in that beautiful fresh air and the smell of the water and the birds. But then it became difficult to walk without stumbling and I needed to get home to the couch. 

This is not a fun blog. But the providers and my friends keep telling me that I look great, that my spirit shines through. Looking great is now on a wider spectrum, now that I see the trajectory of healing is going to be longer than I thought.

There is no guarantee I will not have another bleed. I am now in a population that is in danger all the time. At some point I will have to let go of this terror and completely put myself in the hands of the spirits. I continue to live my life, or I live in fear. I must continue – savor each day. Still, I am full of gratitude.

Life has become small and so big at the same time, for what is so vastly important is in the small things around us. In order to function in society, we need all kinds of barriers. But in being truly vulnerable, I can see things I could not before, and one of those is all the different ways that people love. In this, there is no reason to make sense of the world anymore. What will happen, will happen. It is useless to panic.

I hold such gratitude.

Tomorrow, super-special visit from my cuz.

Between my mother’s multiple falls, my car accident, and my sister-in-law’s mother’s stroke, there is a seismic shift happening in my family of origin. My family of origin has been one of minefields and psychological violence. It’s no secret. No one in my family would be shocked to read this. It is the atmosphere in which we have always existed. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the cards our ancestors were dealt. Countless attempts at peace, interrupted by explosions and then silence for long periods of time. Rinse and repeat.

There are a variety of reasons why I have not felt alliance with any of my siblings in years. But I received a beautiful phone call from my older brother and his wife after my first hospitalization. Upon my second hospitalization, I woke up to be told me that my younger brother would be there in two hours. I couldn’t believe it. When he showed up, he looked like a soft and cuddly papa. I asked him if mom had told him that my favorite thing in the world is when people show up, and I got to watch that land on his heart. He was with me for about 24 hours, during which time he admitted to me that being a papa truly is the most important thing in his life. My sister inserts loving whispers into the family texts.

I woke up this morning in tears, feeling love from my family. The love and concern that has flowed into the cracks of our ever-broken dynamic has been like Kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken ceramics with gold. This beauty literally could not be without the landscapes we have walked through together.

The work is not complete. There are more pieces to come together, and as our dynamic goes, it’s usually one step forward, two steps back. But I feel it is happening. I tell my mother that some day before she dies, we may have one family gathering without any fighting.

This seismic shift happens at the same time I am discovering the love of my friends, neighbors and community. They hold me in a gentle web while I recover from two procedures on my brain and navigate the world of FMLA, insurance, lawyers, fear and sudden bouts of mental exhaustion.

I will make it through this. I will be a better person because of it. I will savor the grace of every moment that is a gifted to me.

We all have different ideas of what good relationships can be. Some are theory. Some are fantasy. Some come from what we’ve been taught from others. But what is real is always what is in the present, not the mind or the past or projection.

I am being taught, and I am learning there is no option but to keep on and have faith.

Yup, that’s my big message, my meaning for Winter Solstice this year. It’s dark. That’s it.

Back when I worked with homeless women, there was this young, beautiful dyke with a mohawk who had chosen to be on the streets after witnessing her brother being killed by a strike of lightning. She was a talented painter and she taught me about backwards magic.

She said, Just put things on their head, exactly the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. There’s a lot of wisdom in that – not to mention the fun.

Again, we make our own meaning. So if the traffic on I-5 slaps you to the retaining wall, you can make up anything you want to about it. If you try to watch a movie and then you are wiped out for the rest of the day you can just close your eyes and explore the darkness. Darkness is very spacious, and magic happens when we are sleeping. We think we control our world, but really, we don’t. When you wake up in the morning and your body feels a little bit of that sunshine, the beautiful feeling of sheets against your legs and back, those are indicators that some magic happened overnight. Things were mended or changed or rearranged or colored in…we don’t get to see the mechanisms of this magic. Conversations happened..I’ve been saying this all along. The reason things are called mysterious is because they are a mystery.

So we can just let go. Whatever comes. It doesn’t matter what we do or how we interpret it, because we are gonna be loved by the spirits anyways.

(Yes, I’ve been looking for an excuse to share this meme. I spent half a morning looking for it last week when I was in the hospital – I don’t know why.)