BRAINBLEED(s) - 3 weeks of ICU to UNLEARN

REENTRY
I am finally at home. Never thought it would happen… Time had been so stretched out that I could not afford to hope for that anymore.

The drive home is “out of this world.” Trees, light, people, space… an amazing sight. And that huge gap between what I am, the most finite form of a self observing all of that, and the rest, what is generally called “life.”

OMG?
The weeks pass one by one.
Yes I am home…
BUT I am so sick that, in my naivete, I think that people in my state would NOT be allowed to live… by God.
So much for God!
Being asleep is the only solace along my (horizontal) day.

THOSE FRIENDS
So much for friends too, it has become clear that many friends will not be there, cannot be there. A no-man’s land has appeared, as sad as it may be, the borders are clear. I am losing “friend” after “friend.”
Days, weeks pass and no improvements. People asking me how I am doing cannot handle my repeating day after day that I am not well. They want to feel better about me.

KNOWLEDGE CAN ONLY COME FROM INSIDE
Hoping to finally read some of the classics on my shelves, it is clear that will have to be for another time: I cannot hold a book in my hands, nor concentrate on a page.
A great physical therapist who visits me at home and to whom I complain that I am doing absolutely nothing, responds that I am doing plenty: I am healing.
To take off from John Cage, I am doing nothing, but I am doing it!
Silent lesson in humility.

BARELY THERE
Later, when I can sit for a dinner, I cannot really sit up: my head has to be resting in my hands or worse, on the table on my arms.

STUFF
My first look at my desk with all of its tchotchkes, it was clear that had I not come back, most everything would have been stuff to those that survived me. I am the only one who knows what is what and provides meaning to “stuff”… most everything is stuff!