The day after a heart attack
Today, like most days of the past three months, I sat next to
someone emerging into The-Day-After
they’ve had a heart attack. From a hospital bed, heart monitor cables clipped
to their chest, they blink at me bewildered. Shell shocked, they retell the
events of the previous day.
A usual day, full of something normal, rode my bike/walked to my
sister’s house/went to work/ did the vacuum cleaning. Then pain, in the
chest/back/jaw/arm. The pain worsens, for some its horrendous, for others so
minimal they can’t believe they’re even here. But here they are, emerged from a
lab where tubes, dyes, stents, and so many drugs, have been pumped into
blood vessels to restore blood flow to the heart.
A Baz Luhrman songs says “The real troubles in life are apt
to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that that blindside
you on some idle Tuesday.”
What I’ve learnt from sitting by the bedside of these people
trying to make sense of how close they just came to dying, is that you don’t
see it coming. But it is coming. In the extra kilos building up around the
stomach. In the inactivity that creeps into life. In the stress, anger and
worry that niggles, gnaws and haggles its way into your being. You don’t see it
coming. But it is.
Its taken for granted that there will always be a tomorrow
to make that lifestyle change. Another time to meditate. Another time to stop
drinking so much. Another time to exercise more regularly. It gets put off.
In the faces staring out at me from hospital beds, I see the
sudden and horrible shock, that this is life catching up. They almost died. And though they
haven’t, now they’re heart muscle has been damaged. Perhaps it will heal. Likely,
it won’t.
Its not just some cheesy catch phrase spouted in popular
yoga classes. The present really is all we have
Earlier this year, I packed up yet another home, and moved
from the great wilderness I had come to love, to follow the man tattooed on my
insides, to the humming streets of Sydney. Leaving came with such a rush of
grief, a miscarriage whose umbilical cord still does not feel cut, its hold
still so great upon me. There is much in this present I find hard to be with.
From the stretch of high rise buildings that surround my current home, to the
massive city hospital I show up to each day to work in. Its hard to enter that
impersonal building and not think on the desert-scape I used to drive out into
each day… But as tantalising as these memories are, as urgent as the craving
is, it is nothing but a mirage I lust after.
If this moment is the one I have, if everything can be swept
away in so fleeting a wave, then I choose to be completely present. I finger
the edge of my grief, but dig my feet into this ground. Around me, the light is
shifting through trees and I walk through a street my hand held in his hand. I load my vintage bicycle with
fresh produce, and meander through the quieter streets. Through parks where
puppies play. And I enter those big hospital doors, and sit down with these men
and women, as they sort through this gigantic moment of their lives.
I crave another time and place. But this is the time and
place I have. Grief, and frustration, worry, joy, peace, sweetness, the
bitter… they were present in the desert, and they are present here. Always in
ebbing, flowing waves.
No matter where I am, I will be happy. I will be sad. I will
be energised and excited. I will be bitter and fatigued. Everything changing.
Everything impermanent. And sitting beside men and women, who have brushed
death and been called to account, I am reminded that there is only now to make
peace with this.
There is only now to show up for a daily practice of
committing to a life that is present, that embraces each moment, each place,
each time, each circumstance with equanimity, with compassion, with loving kindness,
with humour. Now is the only time to choose to cycle instead of driving. To not
drink that third beer. To put Facebook down. To hug the husband. To role around
with the puppy. To cry. To sit, with someone, in silence while they cry.
2013 has not been an easy one. And I have often sought to
avoid it. To escape it. To move. To be elsewhere. But 2012 also had its
difficulty, as will 2014.
Often, in a yoga class, I am asked to set my intention. The
intention I always set is only to be present. To show up and be present with
whatever arises on my mat.
As 2013 closes, I make this my intention for my life. Not for 2014. For
now.
To see these sweet moments ease out of 2013. Luscious, full,
and complete with life.
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