finding the toreadors, first draft

when i think about my mother's passing
i think about Dali's Hallucinogenic Toreador.
i can see both vividly in my head.
one masterpiece was oil and canvas,
the other
freckled skin, tender shallowed breath, and a calm pulse.

the trick about Dali is that he teases your perspective.
he slaps you first with awe,
a strike behind the knees
so you wobble,
dumbfounded and gasping,

"how beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful!"

and you think you get it,
you think you understand
you think you realize everything that exists in the painting,
until the guide at the museum points out:
   "you don't see it all upon first glance."

hidden within layers
there is more.
beauty, mystery, emotion, tragedy, life.

"Hallucinogenic Toreador takes careful examination," said the museum guide,
"it takes training your eyes to see the dual images."

one month ago this morning,
i held your hand and rested my index finger upon your wrist
upon your pulse,
and i felt the rhythm of your life in my fingertip.
i felt it diminish.
i felt the last beat of your heart.
i felt you die.

"how beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful!"

wobbling, gasping, dumbfounded,
i believed i understood,
i believed i got it.
i believed i saw the entire picture.

but the first month is just the first glance.

your passing, your death, your absence
strikes me behind the knees at least three times a day.
i would fall over every time if i didn't have the dancing balance you instilled in me.

there are so many layers in this, Mother.

layer one: death scares me.
layer two: i am angry with god.
layer three: i am bitter with the world.
layer four: i am fragile.
layer five: i am frustrated because Cher's mother is somehow still alive and looks forty.
layer six: i am not ready to accept that you are gone.
layer seven: i am certain merlot tastes better than it ever has.
layer eight:  i am ready to shove every cigarette of every loved one into the ground.
layer nine:  i am trying to keep you alive within me.

where is your calming spirit?
where is your soft voice telling me negativity serves no purpose?

Mother, i needed help to see the toreador.
i'm afraid i would have never seen him had he not been pointed out.

i must train my eyes to look deeper than the surface.
i must train my eyes to be more like you.

i promise to find the toreadors.
with and without you,
i promise.

silent ovation

Listening to the rise
and the fall
of your breath.

Your life makes an orchestra of beautiful sound.

I don't want to sleep.
I want to listen to you,
forever.

When the orchestra stops,
I will stand silent
(my bones will scream 'encore')
in the silence.

Ovation, Mama.

Ovation. Ovation. Ovation.
Ovation. Ovation. Ovation.

Ovation.

Two years. Nine stickers.

Today. Today marks two years since you took your last breath.

Two years.

At 4:27 this afternoon, it will be exactly two years.

Dad, I felt the urge to run to you yesterday. Much like the urge I felt back in kindergarten. There was a bit of magic in that run from the school bus to the house, feet going with all the speed my little hushpuppies could muster.

Thirty years later, and I'd give anything to sneak up our broccoli green living room stairs to find you. Up, up, up six mighty big stairs, holding my breath with anticipation. I knew you would jump out to surprise me. I knew I would screech regardless. It was our routine. It ended with us running in circles around each other until you picked me up and listened to me gush over the stickers I had earned.

So here's the deal, Dad. I miss you. I miss you in so many different ways. But mostly I miss you being here to witness all that has gone on. You were the biggest proponent of education I know, so it seems only fitting that I yearn to share with you all I have learned since your passing. I have taken some of the biggest courses life has to offer and I want you to see my stickers. They're not scratch n' sniff, not fuzzy or furry or bubbly. But they glow. All nine stickers really glow.

Sticker One: I saw an anemone in an aquarium in Florida. I gazed at it and felt my spirit shake. I gazed at it the same way I gazed at the exposed roots of an old banyon tree the night before. My spirit shook then, too. I'm not sure what exactly happened in these gazing contests with life, but during them, it felt like you were whispering to me. Whispering and reminding me how fantastically huge and glorious every living creature is. And then there there were those itty bitty details on that sea-dragon!!! Damn little thing brought tears to gazing! How does all this gazing gain a sticker? I have earned and learned that there is dramatic beauty in this world when my eyes are open enough to see it. After all I have faced in the past two years, I am now gazing more intently than ever. Being deeply awake. Sticker One.

Sticker Two: There are some things that logic and/or science can not explain or ever define for me. I realized this after trying endlessly to make sense of things that just seemed too big for the human brain to patent. These are the things that have changed me, that charge me, and keep my soul buzzing with electricity. Forever. They are the signs that remind me there's so much more than the 9-5, the impressive house, the fancy car, the latest trends, the television. Yes, Dad...there IS so much more than that boobtube. I now pay serious attention to these signs-I welcome, honor, and feel grateful for them. Maybe this is part of sticker one too? It seems big enough to hold its own. Awareness. Sticker Two.

Sticker Three: I got a new kidney. I got a second chance at life. Everyone here got more quality time with me. The glory of a second chance may be the most beautiful thing I've ever known...and I'm trying quite hard to make sense and make the most of it. This sticker was made possible by someone I met just weeks after your passing. I truly believe you had a hand in sending her my way. Miracles don't happen without the aid of an angel, and I really believe you tickled time and space to bring us together. If you already don't, you would love her. She has a welcoming soul like mom, and her warmth and goodness radiate. I'm more alive than I've ever been. Alive. Sticker Three.

Sticker Four: I learned to reduce the bull****! I accepted that I (we as humans) have very little control over things (how does one not accept this when one's health is deteriorating before one's eyes and there is very little one could do?) I started to understand what's really worth my time and what's really not worth my time. I suppose it's the art of letting go? I'm still working on my brush strokes, but I realized the need to do so on a gut level after losing you and facing my own mortality. Life, in every cliché way, is too damn short to care what other people think. I am working to delicately protect myself from bull**** and gently call it when I see it. In EVERY circle of my life. Even with the doctors, Dad. Just last month during a procedure, I gently shouted at the urologist, 'you're not in my urethra, you're in my vagina!' I did so with rich confidence, Dad. I know my body. He obviously did not. I needed to help him help me. The bottom line: bullshit hurts, and the less I have to deal with, the better. Sticking up for myself with grace. And guts. Sticker Four.

Sticker Five: I learned some of my family may read this, and some will never read the first sentence. Regardless, I love them all. I'm at peace with knowing stuff like that. Peace. Sticker Five.

Sticker Six: Love is unavoidable. The key is being open to it. And being a mindful driver with it, along with all the cars that share your road. It also takes knowing which cars are healthy and good for you, and staying in a lane full of them. Find love. Plaster it all around you. Sticker Six.

Sticker Seven: Only a thin veil keeps me from the space where you exist. I don't know what that means, but it became my truth days before the transplant and my reality the night following it. I was so potently aware of the fragility of life then, and that awareness will always stay with me. Vulnerability. Sticker Seven.

Sticker Eight: I am engaged. To a very special woman. Together, we have a dynamic life and home. We have two dogs and two cats and lots of fish. She has been by my side since your passing, and promised from day one to offer me the most flexible love she could. She is courageous and she is driven (she must be knowing the complexity that exists in loving and understanding someone like me.) We have a HOME, Dad. I don't really know how you would have embraced this if you were alive. I do hope in passing, love becomes the most important aspect in having lived...regardless of surface details. Love. Sticker Eight.

Sticker Nine: Faith. I don't know where you are. I don't know if you hear me when I talk to you in my car. Or when I'm unable to fall asleep and ask for your guidance. Or when I say hello to you when the sun graces me with warmth. I don't know if you hear me. But, I BELIEVE you do. I wrote this believing it. I had to. And I have to believe that somehow, somewhere you are going to read it. After you get done checking the grammar, of course. I know you're somewhere, and you will feel proud of the growth in these words. And you will feel the love that radiates for you. This perhaps is the most important sticker earned. Faith. Sticker Nine.

I know there's more stickers. Many many more. But nine felt like a good number to close with.

I miss you, Ronald Rogers. I miss your smile and your wisdom and the strong faith you sought in us...faith in ourselves, in humanity, in God.

Two years without you has become two years of keeping you alive within me.

upon you

against the hard wood floor i stretch my body.
my back flat,
parallel with the planks.

my right hand falls
upon my abdomen,
upon you.

for the first time in two months i realize where you sit within me.

the universe rushes under the palm of my hand.
gift, light, truth, pulse
nestled right here.
just beneath this skin.

who am i
to feel, understand
deserve
this?

i want to grab your hand,
i want to place it here.

feel what i feel.

do you know what you have done?
do you understand what you have given?

this week i thought i forgot how to be grateful,
irritated at the length of lines, commercials, slow internet connection.
how easy it is to get distracted into distraction.

how will i remember?

touch this.

feel this. 

here you are.

survivor

first I had to learn to scoot,
before I learned to crawl.
and before I learned to walk,
I had to learn to tumble, tumble, tumble.
(and dive. down a flight of stairs. in a plastic walker.
thank you seventies for shag carpet.)

I was bred to be a survivor from the beginning.

I am a three course meal these days,
an appetizer, entree, and dessert of emotions.
I have no idea how I taste,
but I've heard your adjectives.
is your tongue numb to being full?

(I am trying my best to be a good meal.
if you complain to the manager,
I may stir atomic heartburn.)

I wanna be where the writers are.
closing down a dark dive bar,
whiskey and ginger in my left,
black ink fading in my right.

(but it's 4:32 a.m. and I am in bed,
tapping on my smart phone, nursing a nine inch scar.
insomnia is to writer's block 

what prune juice is to constipation.
word flow.  

finally.

so what if I'm in bed.)

look at these dark medals that hang under my eyes.
I have earned these swollen circles.

I am a survivor,
of writer's block
kidney death
miracles
an Irish catholic clan of nine lads and lasses
depression
divorced parents
miracles
homophobia
unfaithful lovers
miracles
the death of my father
the dying of my mother
diving down that damn flight of stairs before I was one.
and more.

watch me move today.
really watch me.
(I'm not just what you see,
nor just what your tongue tastes.)

I am a survivor,
of miracles and tragedies

and I respectfully own them 
all.

five words

sitting inside a house for four weeks
makes four weeks feel like four score and some years ago.
the clock becomes a foe
the computer, a square best friend.

(to socialize with more than two people requires a bacterial mask,
which sometimes feels a tad bit excessive.
however, the alternative is not a possibility.)

i miss my classroom, coded handshakes and high-fives with students.
i miss driving to the drugstore when i need toothpaste.
i miss feeling sexy.
i miss sweating on an elliptical.
i miss the sound of a packed Lucky's on a Sunday morning.
i miss feeling a live bass guitar thumping in my chest.
i miss the sound of my voice erupting into a microphone.

my head tells my body:  "you have a new kidney!"
my body tells my head: "be patient, excited head."
my doctor tells my head and body: "you are more fragile than you were before transplant."
my head and my body sit.
quiet.

i'm seeking comfort in this loneliness.
i'm seeking to re-enter the world with electric passion.  ZING!
i'm seeking a way to pay my bills.
i'm seeking eternal caffeine for this spiritual awakening.
i'm seeking to understand my new body, my new life, my new career, my new identity.

seeking.  see king.  see queen.  me.

i was up last night from one to three am, staring at words about toxins pumped into me.
how is it that something so vital to saving my life can create problems that would take it?
pharmaceutical conundrum.

i wanna cry sometimes.  i do.

but i have five words that give my tears perspective.

she gave me her kidney.

(erase the 279 other words above. they are just noise.)

New Beginnings

It has been 2 weeks since I was gifted a second chance at life.  

My body accepted this second chance in record time. 

No joke.  The surgeon's message to my family was, 'the second we connected Meredith's kidney into Maura, it began producing urine on the surgery table.' 

Immediate acceptance. Typically there is some adjustment time that occurs.  For some it could be a few hours before the kidney takes to its new home...for others it can be a few weeks.  The fact that my body accepted this in seconds only confirms my faith and trust in the undeniable grace that has unfolded within and around me. My body opened itself to love and received it without fear, without hesitation. I received this gift with the deepest sense of gratitude I have ever, and quite possibly will ever feel. Now the awe I feel for my life, for humanity, for second chances, for my love, for my soul mates, for my friends and family, for my past, my present, my future, and for Meredith...is indescribable. I believe it may be some time before I actually have the words to explain.  I also believe there really will never be words that can adequately explain it.  It's one of those rare life experiences that can't be shaped in words.  How do you put "awe" in words?  I hope to try to find a way to share what this means to me...but I have come to accept that it's going to be a process.  And I'm excited at the aspect of how this process will reveal itself to me.

Even though it seems impossible, I'd like to entertain the chance at trying to give this awe words, because this awe is changing me.  

Forever.

(Small dose of grungy reality, so I don't make everyone sick with sappy happy joy. There are A LOT of difficult things I'm adjusting to. There is a lot my partner is adjusting to. There is a lot those close to me are adjusting to.  Having a transplant is huge, but helping the body adjust to all the medications to prevent rejection is also quite huge. Huge and rough (when I write rough, hear Tina Turner's voice growling in Proud Mary.) ROUGH. But of course, worth it. It's what makes this new beginning possible. So it is hard, and pumping my body full of toxins to prevent rejection is REAL hard in the first month post-transplant. But I choose to focus on the awe. I choose to see past the pettiness that occurs in daily life and focus instead on how unbelievably fortunate I am, how unbelievably fortunate my partner is, how unbelievably fortunate those who love me are for this gift we have all been given.)

Awe. 

Awe for life equals a new attitude.  This new attitude is is drenched in the feeling of possibility.  This feeling of possibility wakes me up, and is accompanied with an energy I have not woke up with in years. This week I woke up without swollen hands, without swollen eyes, feeling rested and full of dreams, goals, and a renewed passion for my life.  

(I remember who I was just a few weeks ago.  I didn't let my disease get in my way-I worked on recording and releasing an album with my band, I moved into a home with my partner.  And I did these things with a sense of trust.  But I have to admit there was a lingering fear that tangled itself around each adventure.  This fear was rooted in rejection.  What if people don't like the new album?  What if I'm not ready to live with someone? What if, what if, what if?)  

On August 8, 2012, I put fears to rest.  The surgeon cut me open and restored my faith. In humanity, in myself, and in all that I am capable of doing.  

I am capable of anything.  I am capable of anything.  I am capable of anything. 

I will pursue what I want and I will go after everything and anything that will make me stronger and more fulfilled. Regardless of the outcome, I am not afraid to try, because I have faced my biggest fear and have come through stronger than ever. 

I will:

Get my band to Philly, NYC, and Atlanta!  
Take a cooking class!
Audition for theater! GLTF!
Share Meredith's and my story, increasing awareness of Live Organ Donation!
Write! Get Published! 
Go to Ireland with my partner and family!
Yoga!

This is my Act Two.  Every morning is a new page and I hold the power within to shape it however I like.

This is a gifted second chance at making the most out of my life.  

In honor of Meredith and her gift, I am going to make the most out of this second chance.