Three Times Under

Going under is a scary feeling. I can imagine that it feels close to death—as the light and faces fade around you and your thoughts drift to memories and white lights. To be afraid of this feeling requires experiencing it more than once. The first time, it is only fear of the unknown, but the second, you know the loss involved. You will lose your time and space, your friends and relatives, your beliefs and values. For the time that you are under, you are just a speck of sleep on God’s realm of surgeries.

Tomorrow, I will go under for the third time, and I am scared to death. I remember the night before my gall bladder surgery, David asking, “Megan, do you want me to stay?” At first, I said, “No!” After all, I have experienced BRAIN SURGERY! Surely a little cut along my abdomen isn’t going to phase me. But as the nurse put morphine into my I.V. I panicked, “Yes, yes, please stay.” For the first time since my brain surgery, I was reminded of that “going under” feeling. I needed David there to keep me in the present. He was my connection to the living world, when the rest of my mind and body felt only the dead.

I don’t think it is an accident that I have been so fascinated with graveyards. The connection I feel with the dead is indescribable, and most would consider it crazy. When I feel that sinking feeling of “going under,” I feel death with me, on the other side of the door, just waiting to be greeted. At the same time, it is scary beyond belief. I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to be with those people. Studying them, writing about them, that’s all okay; but I don’t want to be them. And as I sink into the deepest sleep, I beg for life.

When Mike Young saved me from the Mediterranean Sea in Italy, I didn’t know that I was yet to encounter two surgeries that would put me at the pearly gates. Looking back on that experience, it was the sinking feeling I related to in all of my surgical conquests. The closing of the eyes, slowness of breath, and ultimate relaxation of body…all of it made me afraid and yet, at peace. That is what is so frightening about going under: it is scary and peaceful.

I have been told that given my history with brain surgery and emergency gall bladder removal, my wisdom teeth will be a breeze. I didn’t hesitate at all when asked if I wanted to “go to sleep.” I know what’s coming, I guess, and I also know that I shouldn’t be afraid. The sinking feeling is a memory, now, and unlike its one time occurrence amongst most people’s souls, this will be my third. How many times can I escape the drowning purgatory of anesthesia? The more I experience it, the more I fear that moment.

And then, as all liberals might do in such a situation, I realize my privilege. I have dental insurance. I have medical insurance. I am privileged enough to get my wisdom teeth out. I have a father to drive me to the procedure and stand by my side. It is selfish to be afraid, when I have been so lucky in the past. After all, after tomorrow, I will have had three procedures that could have been pushed aside due to financial conflict. Three procedures that made my life easier and made my heart stronger. Three procedures that, though many of them might need it, most of my students will never even get the option to have.

So, is it okay to be afraid? Can I justify my fear of the drowning of elements? Can I cling to my father in immature, unneeded anxiety? I have to. My fear overwhelms my liberalism and nests in my doubt. It conquers my past experience and settles into my worries. What if I just keep sinking? What if I never wake up?

Daddy will be there. Thank God for that.

wedding stuff

Friends,

There's some other wedding stuff up at our wedding site here, notably a couple of the speeches about why we should get married, and liner notes to the wedding cd. Also, if your cd begins with a half dozen hip-hop songs, congratulations on receiving the rare variant version. Actual Rachael and David tracks follow those. If you have not yet received a Weasley Wedding Album, let me know and I'll mail you one.

http://sites.google.com/site/bigparadewedding/

Perhaps soon I will post on the existential new realities I face as a married and graduated person. Or something more interesting.

Speaking of more interesting, a couple of nights ago I dreamed that Bean (haymarket's dog) and I successfully robbed a bank in a scheme involving pneumatic tubes. See, it's always worth reading to the end around here...

David

Top Ways Married Life is Different from Before

1. I no longer return home from work and spend the rest of the night on wedding prep (YAY!). Also, my wedding dress is Done instead of In Progress.

2. David and I have joint bank accounts

3. I wear a wedding ring

4. My Spanish students now call me Señora Raquel instead of Señorita Raquel

5. David and I have lots of candy and quilts and honey and seasons of Simpsons and sweet cards from lots of people. :)

IT IS OUR WEDDING.

Well, I thought it would be cool to set up an auto-post thing that would post right about when the gathered community is pronouncing Rachael and I married. So, here it is.

Yay!



(That's right, you just heard about a wedding on google reader. Welcome to the stupid future.)

from the back cover of 'recipes for disaster: an anarachist cookbook' by crimethinc

"You must always have a secret plan. Everything depends on this: it is the only question. So as not to be conquered by the conquered territory in which you lead your life, so as not to feel the horrible weight of inertia wrecking your will and bending you to the ground, so as not to spend a single night more wondering what there is to do or how to connect with your neighbors and your countrymen, you must make secret plans without respite. Plan for adventure, plan for pleasure, plan for pandemonium, as you wish; but plan, and lay plans constantly.

And when you come to, on the steps of the presidential palace, in the green grass beside the highway, in your cell's gloomy solitude, your secret plan finished or failed, ask your comrades, ask your cellmates, ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the sea, ask everything that ponders, everything that wanders, everything that sings, everything that stings- ask them what time it is; and your comrades, your cellmates, the wind, the waves, the stars, the sea all will answer: "It is time for a new secret plan. So as not to be the martyred slave of routine, plan adventure, plan pleasure, plan pandemonium, as you wish: but plan, plan secretly and without respite."

This has been resonating in my head lately.

Happy planning.

New PCC Church Website

My church in Oberlin, Peace Community Church, has a new website. You can check it out if you live in northeast ohio, or if you like church websites. Or if you're coming to the wedding and looking for a nice place to be Sunday morning.

http://pccoberlin.org/

homebrew wedding, aka 'sorry, wedding industry.'

So, as most (both) readers of this blog likely know, Rachael and I are getting married in May. We've got a pretty simple shindig planned, but this stuff is all really expensive still. Turns out we're going homebrew on a lot of stuff. B and T might loan us their lovely car as a gift, to save us from renting one. Digger and I are just going to build a tent, rather then renting at exorbitant rates. And everybody's bringing potluck food to fill out the meager restaurant food we're buying.

I like the improv, medi-awesome aesthetic that is slowly arising out of the muck of phone calls and emails to various professionals and acquaintances. Rachael's making her own dress. Everybody's making their own parade costumes. It's more work, in some ways, but only in some ways.

It also highlights my own resources. In some ways, I don't have a lot of wealth: I don't have too, too much money left in the bank, and I work minimum wage these days, mostly. However, I know a lot of great and generous people, and that social wealth is not to be underestimated. Moreover, it is entirely tax free.

I like this rising aesthetic also because of what it signifies: our wedding is not going to be traditional, and it is going to arise out of the sweat and creativity of those closest to us. (And some helpful strangers.) Similarly, our marriage is not going to be traditional, and instead of coming as a packaged deal, it will arise, slowly, messily, and organically, out of our creativity and sweat, and out of the joys and sorrows and gifts of our community, and of the strangers that also surround us.

I feel grateful about it, lately.