The Death and Transfiguration of a Daydreamer, in Three Parts.

Part One

My Prologue:

Several years ago I saw a solo performance piece where the actress played a pirate. In her prologue she showed us a matched brace of cap and ball pistols. As she displayed them she assure us, that while she would be fighting off the Queen’s Navy and brandishing her trusty equalizers for defensive purposes only, we should not worry about the loud noise made by a fired weapon in such a confined space. She would not fire the guns.

Instead each time she needed gunfire she would yell “Bang, Bang.” She asked us not to laugh, this was a serious piece, and as she was sensitive to her audience’s welfare we should be sensitive to her art. Of course, every time she yelled “Bang, Bang” all of us broke into laugher. She seemed to have a lot of enemies, as there was a lot of “Banging” about the stage. So much so, that by the time we were half way thought her piece we were all yelling “Bang, Bang” along with her. By the end of the evening it sounded like a raging battle.

My prologue leads us to my story. As much as it appears that I’m drifting into tales of disaster, fear not, my narrative has a happy ending.

The Tale:

Last Wednesday night I spend a quiet evening enjoying myself while hooked up to a Heart Monitor in the Emergency Room of Piedmont Hospital. Since New Years I have been feeling a bit under the weather. Sometimes a bit dizzy, a little difficulty breathing and just a wee bit tired and always out of sorts.

Don’t blame it on a wild New Years Eve party, though I wish that were the case, it was just my heart. I have been having a little heart trouble since I moved to Atlanta. Now don’t blame the South. If you need to blame anybody blame Kyle, my boss. He moved me here. The first month in town my new Internist discovered that I had had a silent heart attack, probably before I was completely unpacked.

So off I go to a Cardiologist. It takes a bit of work but finally I end up with having a pretty good outcome with the heart muscle. It’s okay, with some medication it’s doing good, and of course, the stint they added to open an arteries or two didn’t hurt. Effort from lots of people and insurance money kept me on top of the dirt. It would be small of me to be picky.

If you have been following along with my Blog you know that last year was both busy and fruitful for me. The Oxford experience alone would have been sufficient, but you add the weight lost and the physical conditioning and there is much to like. If fact, there is so much that happened I just don’t have time to deal with it here, so just the highlights, please.

The fossilized, yet persistent question; “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” which if rewritten for me would be, “Which came first the body or the mind?” I started preparing for my time in Oxford just about the same time that I started my diet and exercise program. Much walking, coupled with reading Shakespeare on an empty stomach, turned out to be a spiffy plan.

When the body is getting in shape the mind tends to follow. By the time I reached Christ Church I was a lean mean brain-popping machine. Okay, maybe a wee exaggeration. Oh what the hell, yes, over the top. But I was feeling better physically than I had felt in years and when I am feeling good physically I start to experience a reassurance in creativity.

Let’s review. Years of the heart pumping through the overweight out of shape body has me seeing Doctor after Doctor and finely lying flat on my back in an operating theatre. We have been talking heart here; I haven’t even approached the subject of diabetes, which also visits those of us who are not only calorie challenged but are couch potatoes as well.

Thus ends part one. Tomorrow we shall move to part two this saga of mythic triumph. But, in the meantime, ask yourself these two questions. Did he live? Do you care?