my moments are growing longer...

i apologize for the long delay and wait for this final blog, and i really don't have many good excuses except for the mounting pressure to appropriately complete the blog cycle of our lives. i didn't begin this, but i heard rumors of its growth into a life of its own, fully saturated on frequent updates, countless curious eyes, clever comments, and a wide variety of perspective and style. starting out as a simple trunk of information, it expanded exponentially, branching into the lives of innumerable people around the country and world. now, as time has passed, it has started to shrivel into itself, watching old branches complete their life spans and fall aside, ceasing to sprout new growths, and hardening the vigorous fluidity that daily fed its expansion.

thinking about the blog, i see its appropriate parallel to my experiences of the past six months. the first month flashes with intensely short moments of memory. all-consuming fear: gangsters relentlessly pursuing me and my family. searing pain, emanating from depths i didn't know i had. faces of family, friends, nurses and surgeons floating above me. my early memories cut the deepest (literally in some cases) and deliver their energy in sudden bursts soon faded. like that early poem said - they offer intense microcosms of the magnanimity of each awakening. the blog reflects those intense days - ever-changing, constantly updated with saturated microbursts of information. its updates are often unattached in time, but together they tell a story with vivid images of the present.

the next phase of my experience lengthens slightly. i remember longer stretches, conversations, basketball games, dressing changes and the rising and subsiding of pain. i no longer lived only in each awakening, but could actually experience the passage of time, the chain of cause and effect. i remember waiting for a dressing change to happen, knowing that visitors were coming and would soon leave. events didn't appear to me anymore, they happened. similarly, the blog lengthens, more detail and context appears in its entries. the writers allow themselves to focus more on what will happen in the next few days, on implications, and the entries become more regular and evenly spaced.

coming off the drugs, beginning intense therapy, walking and moving to the rehab hospital in new york stretched my experience of a moment even more. i counted days and nights, remembered walking the day before and compared my progress. i could see my wounds and i watched them heal, comparing, contrasting and beginning to anticipate transition and movement. one day i could walk five steps with a walker, and then five days later i walked down the entire hall. one day we rejoiced because i took one step without a cane, and a week later i was climbing stairs unassisted. progress came quickly, suddenly and those were the moments i inhabited. the lifespan of my physical improvement became my reality, my home. an optimistic period, the blog again mirrors my space - allowing a few days in between entries but always progressing rapidly, looking forward to the next week or two, but never beyond.

as i moved to nashville, i realized that my life was swiftly changing. for months i existed moment to moment, and then day to day, but now i started looking further into the distance. at Nashville Rehab, i realized, for the first time, that my flexibility was not going to improve significantly until i had surgeries, too far in the future to even consider. my wounds persistently blistered and bled and i could no longer see progress on a daily basis. i started to think in terms of weeks and months, anxiously awaiting the day my back would close up and my other wounds heal. i aimed at short-term goals, like Michael Ewing's wedding; there lay the limit of my vision. the blog expanded too, looking backwards to see progress instead of citing it daily. tracking life experiences and inspirations rather than a progression of steps.

finally, here at home, a month out of the hospital, a month away from the blog, my moments have elongated to capture the entire whole. my back is closed, as are several other wounds, but others persist and will for the foreseeable future. my weight has returned to normal and my flexibility and endurance will remain what they are until further surgical intervention. i don't think in terms of days, weeks, or even months anymore; i know time will bring its future at its own pace. i still feel as if my life is suspended, like a thick haze descended on me on February 19th and i am still feeling my way out. at first i could sporadically see my hand or a nearby face emerging from its embrace, but those spaces of insight grew until i am able to see all of my surroundings, to see what lay ahead pretty clearly, but my sight is still bounded by the edge of the fog. what it contains is clear, but i cannot glimpse what is outside - what life will be like when it is finally lifted, although i know shards and ribbons of it will always remain. 6-10 months from now, i will be undergoing a series of surgeries to remove the heterotrophic ossification in my hip and leg and reverse my colostomy. until that time, i am waiting, and healing. we see small improvements in my grafts and donor sites, but we see them weekly, or even bi-weekly. i can walk around, get out, and participate in life, but i am limited and frustrated many times.

slowly, i have begun to consider life outside the haze, but the white veil still ensures its mystery. i do not know what my final state will be, who i will become, how i will function. i know that life will continue to change, moment by moment, but now those moments are longer. i cannot express adequately how humbling an experience it has been to have so many people care for me, love me, pray for me, write to me, cry for me and even cheer for me, when all i did was get myself hit by a big old fat oil tanker.

i am slowly reacquainting myself with the idea of the future. i plan to spend this year healing, reading, writing, playing boggle (anyone up for a monthly game?) and other board games (bring it on, franklin), tutoring, doing physical therapy, waiting in doctors' offices, and (unfortunately) watching TV. one mystery has been solved - Mr. (or should i say Mrs.) Penguin is/was/will be none other than Ginger Handy (Joey, how could you deceive us?), but there are many mysteries still ahead of me. i am accepted to Oxford University, in England, starting in Fall, 2006, but i have no idea if i will be able to go, or still have the desire. the questions have started to layer themselves on my mind - will i ever run? drive a stick shift (my precious miata)? walk normally? sit on a regular chair without my special cushion? use the toilet for #2 (sorry, i had to include it)? return to new york? sleep on a normal bed (i'm still on the clinitron here at home)? etc, etc, etc. at times i want more than anything to stop living in moments, to fast forward to the future and know who and how i will be.

but then i have to pause and catch myself. life is not meant to be fast forwarded, moments are not meant to be skipped or wished away. God has given me a time of peace, of family: a time to suffer and a time to praise Him. this blog is a moment of completion. like me it has undergone a progression of transitions - each extending time and perspective to a slight degree. written to conclude the crisis, it also reflects my new environment of suspense and question, not about what will happen tomorrow or next week, but what my life will be ultimately, what infinite moments will define me.

to conclude i want to do what i seldom do - share a poem i wrote in the hospital (this time without the influence of painkillers)...

as i watch the hours
i search for myself

months and minutes gone
blur montage of forgotten pains
severity lost in memory

days leading only to the next
a ladder, one rung in sight

floating faces and words
gathered around without order
outside time

circular expanse of struggle
experience destroying the linear
ever-spinning clouds
thoughts, suffering, voices, dreams
centered on immobile me

bed-ridden shell, constantly feeding
aware only of present

now emerging, cracking
infant anew
vision lengthens to see the days
beyond and before
life past in mind
separated by cloud
body unable

beyond the shell
its shards remain
reminders of its present

life begins unknown and new
hours stretching

past confronts the future
self restored
present