Super Moon! (XXIX)

So you may all know by now I kind of have a "thing" for the moon.  Last night, the full moon rose at 7:37pm.  I had already wanted to go outside and watch it rise, but it was sealed when I learned from NASA that it would be a rare "super moon", happening once every 18 years or so.  Apparently, the moon will occasionally be closer than usual to the Earth during it's orbit, but rarely will it be closer when it's full.  This coincidence made the moon appear 14% larger than usual.

Husband and I headed outside about 7:50 last night to see it for ourselves.  We don't see it right away, so I refer to my google sky map app to locate it.  And it's right in front of us.  Immediately we are struck.  We run across the street, and start walking towards in the field.  We suddenly realize that's silly, we were walking towards the moon, as if we'd actually reach it at some point.  We collapse in giggles, and then just stand and stare at it for awhile, me leaning up against him, caught up in the moment.  It was pretty freaking cool.

So I don't know if the weirdness of my ride today had anything to do with the "super moon" or not, but I wanted to blog about both today.

First, I'd like to preface this by stating, every time I head out for a ride I wonder a little bit if I will get a flat tire.  Today I felt it stronger than usual.  So much so, that I pretty much expected to get one.  It could've been the odds.  I've been on enough rides now where that didn't happen that it was inevitable.  Anyway, I make sure I have my phone, my license, and my credit card, just in case.  Husband would not be at home today to come to my rescue.

I headed out.  Yesterday on my run I was thinking to myself, "you know, I haven't seen that guy with the ski pole on the trail in a long time."  So today, he's one of the first people I see.  He doesn't use the ski pole for anything that I can tell other than to hold it out away from him, into the side of the trail where people would be passing him on the left.  It's kind of an annoying hazard.  I don't understand it, and it rubs me the wrong way.  What's he thinking?  He needs to be waving some three foot pointy pole out towards people so that we are sure to give him enough space?  Like if he wasn't holding the pole, I'd fly past him on my bike with less than three feet of space between us?  Whatever, dude.  Wave your stupid pole.

Then I make it to the busier, downtown part of the trail.  I only catch a piece of this woman's complaint, but the bit of irony it had made me smile.  This is what I heard: *wind in my ears....*  ..."these cyclists need to SLOW DOWN ON THIS TRAIL OR...."  *wind in my ears*....This is what was happening: She's pushing a parade-float sized stroller in the MIDDLE of the BIKE PATH, with a jogger attempting to pass her on the left, causing me to slow down behind the jogger, and an oncoming cyclist to stop and wait for both the jogger and myself to pass her absurd SUV stroller at a very slow/safe rate of speed.  The wind in my ears was before and after her obstacle was safely avoided, with no real danger to herself or her child. 

Sigh.  Then, about 3/4 into my ride, I stop to blow my nose.  It's a mess, and some guy is seated at a park bench next to the trashcan I'm standing by.  I'm slightly self-conscious about blowing my nose in front of him.  Then he asks me "do you want to buy a Pepsi?"  I pause, "I'm sorry?"  He repeats the question.  I gesture to my water bottle and say, "Thanks, I'm good".  *quietly cycling away....*

And finally, it happens.  I'm about a mile from home.  I again safely avoid a loose child running all over the trail, and feel it.  My bike tire gets all...wobbly.  I peer down through my legs at it and see it flopping around all over the place.  Damn.

Now, this is shameful, I admit.  I have *no* idea how to fix a flat tire.  I have never done it myself.  I have the little patch kit and levers in my bike's fanny pack, but it's a front.  I wouldn't know what to do with them.  Even if I did, it would still be flat.  I have no pump with me.  I have two options.  Dismount, ruin my cleats and walk home, or just ride home on the flat.  I ride home.  It feels gross.  It's all wonky and vaguely nauseating.  But it's only a mile.  And now I have the bike hanging in my garage because I am too embarrassed to go to the bike store and have them fix it, because I want to learn how to fix it myself...just not today.  I might chip a nail, and they're looking really nice right now.

Something neat that I observed this weekend: the seasons are starting to change.  Yesterday morning on my run and this morning on my ride, I could literally *feel* the change.  It was in the air.  There were little pockets where the sun was starting to warm the frost out of the air, so I'd run/ride in and out of these little micro-climates of Winter to Spring.  Pretty awesome.  It was my first run of 2011 in shorts, and my first ride without a hat or jacket.  I could even take off my gloves (as seen in the picture above - they are threaded through my seat).

 

Bl(ow)g Tattoo (21)

When I was like, 19 or 20, I went and got my second tattoo.  I was taking Japanese in college AND painting, so I figured I should just paint my own kanji character and get that tattooed on my lower back.  So I did, and it was unbelievably painful.  I actually fainted.  Straight up passed up.  I remember my friend Drew trying to tell me something (turns out it was "keep still"), and then the world went gray.  

I can count how many times I've ever even felt faint on one hand:

1) when my step-brother Josh's ulcer put him in agony for the entire drive back from Denver to Laramie

2) when my friend Eric had to change the gauze in his mouth after having his wisdom teeth removed

3) changing my own bandages after a particular surgery

4) after standing up too quickly in my Dad's kitchen (also actually passed out that time)

And then getting this second tattoo.

Anyway, I had always wanted to add to it, and fix the little extra dot that occurred while I was apparently twitching before I lost consciousness, but was always too scared to go back.

But after the trials I went through in 2010, I figured I could handle expanding on the tattoo.  I even knew what I wanted to get.
I wanted a Cheshire cat grin moon, stars, and I wanted my kanji to look better.  So I sketched something, sent it off to an artist at Sol Tribe in Denver, and she sent something back so beautiful.


Mine....



...Sol Tribe artist's


Brief explanation: the kanji means "trust", like the kind of trust you have in a friend.  Or the kind of trust you have that everything happens for a reason, something meaningful, and worthwhile.  The needle for my spinal tap and blood patch went RIGHT through this symbol.

The Cheshire cat has always had a special place in my heart.  I *love* Alice in Wonderland.  And have always particularly liked the John Tenniel illustrations, especially of the cat in the tree, greeting Alice.

The moon also is symbolic to me.  It's like a visual, tangible reminder how small our planet is in the Universe.  Something to feel connected to (by the pull of Earth's gravity), our own special space object always orbiting us.  OK, so that one is a bit hard to explain.  But I always enjoy seeing it up in the sky.  Especially after a new moon when you haven't seen it for awhile.  That waxing little crescent, grinning at you, "I'm back"!

So my drawing combined all these elements - sharper looking "trust" kanji, waxing crescent moon/Cheshire cat grin, with stars and leaves to help combine the astral plane the moon is in with the physical plane where the cat is sitting in the tree.  Waxing moon, coming back from the dark side, growing into it's full potential, kind of like the transition I feel my life is taking.

And so BOOM I go in to Sol Tribe totally pumped and ready.  The artist stencils the drawing onto my back, gets me settled in a chair, and starts.

Seriously, not two minutes into it, I get faint.  Full on pale, weak, shaky, can't barely say "I think I need to lay down".  Nauseated, semi-conscious, I flop onto the table, and remain in the fetal position for the entire rest of the hour and fifteen minutes it takes her to finish.

Mindful breathing.  Feel my breath in, feel my breath out.  Not quite enough distraction.  Mindful tapping on my arm.  I squeeze my fingers on my arm, pinky finger, pointer finger.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  It is occurring to me that this reaction I am having is fairly powerful.  I mention to the artist, "I think you must be working on some kind of acupressure point, or you've found the spot I've been holding onto all my emotions I've held in this year because this is intense".  She totally agrees, "let's exorcise those demons" she says.

Then it's all over, and we can't decide on what colors to add.  She tells me to come back later, and we'll figure it out then.  My back is a swollen, red, ravaged mess, and my blood pressure is at like, 50/0. 
Tottering out of the store, I get in my husband's car, and bawl for the next several hours.  These demons are exorcising the hell out, that's for damn sure.
So for as un-rock star a performance that was for me, I am strongly believing that it was completely cathartic, and not at all pathetic.

The Blog also Rises (17)

This morning I headed out for my run, saw the sunrise *jaw dropping*, and ran right back inside to get my camera. I can’t honestly remember seeing a more intensely bright, fiery, glowing orange sunrise. It was truly spectacular.

So I stopped to take some pictures (which barely do it justice), cranked up the Berlin, and trotted off feeling like I just got a massive dose of bliss shot straight into my veins (and at 153 beats per minute it was circulating quickly). 

And we all know now where Berlin takes my thoughts, so I started to remember “all the boys I’ve loved before”…and why I even loved them. I think I’ve had maybe 5 significant/memorable loves in my life. I am not counting my crushes in grade school. Because then there would be some embarrassing
amount more. And of those 5, there are 3 that *glow*. They glow because I know how much they loved me back. That makes a difference. If I’m going to be out there on that shaky love limb, they have to be right there with me, just as vulnerable and exposed, and just as stupid twitterpated as me. Not saying I felt anything less intensely for the other 2, but it wasn’t as safely reciprocated. They will still be memorable and significant in their own way. Even with a bit of mystery…did they truly love me back?  Will I ever know? What would that change? And if you think there is a hint of resentment on my part for falling for these guys without their willingness to give it up for me too, you’re probably right. I mean, come on.

It’s just something inside these men that I recognized. And so I let them into my bubble, and then let my love for them into my heart. Let’s just say, the right ventricle. Like I breathed them in, let them into my pulmonary veins through my lungs, then the left side of my heart pumped them through the
Mercedes Benz symbol-shaped aortic valve into my entire body, into my brain, then back through the superior vena cava into my right atrium, through the tricuspid valve, and then safely tucked back away again in that crescent-moon shaped ventricle. Just stuck there, ready to be pumped through again as needed.
They are there; sometimes causing my heart to skip beats, sometimes ache, sometimes pound with fire, and sometimes just remain inert yet ever present.

I can’t really discuss the order or when they appeared in my life without revealing their identity, and this isn’t really about them anyway. It’s about me, and how they made/make me feel. Those glowers, they’ll keep glowing. At least I married one of them, we can glow together now. :-)

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."  - Robert Frost

Blog-cardiogram 15

This morning was another one of those foggy, dream-like misty mornings.  Cool thing was, the waning cold full moon was still up high enough to see it.
I headed off on my run, my breath coming out in clouds in front of me, swirling in with the fog.

Brought my phone with me on my run so I'd have a camera to try and capture just how ethereal this morning was.
This was the view as I turn West onto the Highline Canal trail.  See the moon peeking through the trees?  Beautiful.
This week at work I have been learning as much as I can about pulmonary arterial hypertension.  So I've been reading articles, patient brochures about right heart catheterization, reading info online, getting training on the registry I'll be working with, and interestingly - following the study physician and nurses around the PH clinic in the Hospital.
One of the most memorable things so far was looking at echocardiograms.  These are done with a sort of ultra-sound machine, capturing images of the heart from different angles.
On the computer, it's just like a black and white movie of the heart, with the EKG components running along below, like a sub-title to your innermost film.  Heart valves fluttering like delicate petals.  Beating, pulsing, so fragile and yet so strong.  Angles showing me the atria and ventricles. 
The crescent moon-shaped right ventricle, working so hard in these patients to just pump blood into their lungs from their usually dilated right atrium and regurgitating tricuspid valve, through their enlarged pulmonary artery.
Cardiac fellows sit in front of these images all day, interpreting results, logging Q-axis and abnormal heart rhythms, and so much more.  To them, it's narrating the patients health and heart function, cardiac output, degree of prolapse and/or regurgitation, etc.  Analyzing the electrical firings of the right and left nerve bundles, triggering the exact right contractions to make it all work.  Strange currencies.
To me, it was beautiful.  When do you ever get to see your beating heart?  The organ that most represents emotions and love.  Throbbing ventricles, flittering little valves, keeping you alive, feeding your body it's oxygen.
I wanted to ask the fellows if they see these images in their dreams, but it seemed like that would be lost on them and would just seem like a weird question from "new girl".  It's their job.  It's their data, their science.  It's that to me too, but so much more.
Beating out life's rhythm, pounding in my chest to keep my body moving down the trail, hurting with life's heartaches, filling with love and gratitude, swelling with pride and affection, becoming a tangible representation of everything *meaningful* and *felt* in life.
I want my own echo.  I want to see my heart in my chest, make it real.  See my own strange currencies.  See that despite the aches, it's just a beautiful, crescent moon-shaped four-chambered machine, capable of so much more.  Capable of anything.  I want to feel it now.