Post-Operation Singalong
Three weeks ago, I wrote that I was provided with the choice between a triple bypass or watching a war criminal and a demented president vie for the Nobel Prize by starting World War Three, and, gosh, maybe even earning a face on Mount Rushmore.
I opted for the triple bypass.
I spent a few weeks being cared for in two Rochester hospitals: Unity and Rochester General.
After only a few minutes there, the lie presented by the humanity-hating 78 year old baby in diapers was as glaringly obvious, as were the tremendous blockages revealed by my angiogram. He runs his life as a day-time TV reality show: THE PREXY, a spin-off of THE APPRENTICE. Its principal themes, besides ripping off the government of its laws and moneys, are hatred, paranoia, and the capacity to bring out the worst instincts of humanity.
God forbid the planet gives birth to any animal, vegetable or mineral disloyal to the Prexy’s hatreds.
The show’s tagline: “Witness ICE running through farmlands, schools, churches, store parking lots and courts in order to erase the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free from the Statue of Liberty, our Nation, and our most aching and optimistic raison d’être. The sight of the failing freak’s private Gestapo in action will grip viewers, providing them with heroes and scapegoats galore.”
After my triple CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting) and during my immediate recovery period, I swore not to see The Prexy’s face or listen to his voice or to those of his followers ever again –even as a writer commenting upon the daily life of a maggot and his followers. Fuck them all. My life is too precious to me as is the love of my family, my awe of my other soul, Kae; we are all too creative, and simply, too much fun! If 77 million people still swear by The Prexy, fuck them as well.
During my multi-month recovery, I will rely upon push-back, defiance and artistry from others. I’ve no doubt my anger and rage against the destruction of the Constitution, and my personal hatred of The Prexy’s dill-pickle putz, Stephen Miller, and the unctuous know-it-all smile of a little has-been of mankind, the Speaker of the House, helped bring me to make the wiser choice of a triple bypass, rather than tuning in to the Prexy reality horror show.
What is presented by the insufferable hater of mankind as a terrifying threat to our nation: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, during the endless episodes of his hyped reality show are anything but real life.
Go to a hospital, and note that Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion are the very elements blessedly saving your life. Black arms, brown arms, Latino arms, white arms, gay arms, lesbian arms— they all swaddle you. Your doctors have East Indian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic accents, and Rochester rhythms. Every gender is there, concerned for your healing
Because that’s the point: Viva Diversity! Long live Equality and celebrate Inclusion!
Without such a gathering of diverse souls, there would be no doctors, nurses, tech, and staff, all attending with compassionate care, concern and expertise. There would be no humanity! No hummus or aglio olio e pepperoncini! No superb Thai or Chinese or Indian restaurants. No surprises of flavor, rhythm or design.
No Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. No splendor of story-telling from everywhere.
BECAUSE that’s how we communicate with each other. God, but humanity tells wonderful tales! How else could I not love the world and a new accent on life!
In the world of DEI, everyone’s an artist, and my good friend.
Happily for me, before submitting to anesthesia, I recited a kabbalistic koan, and suddenly saw, surrounding the operating room, an enormous number of souls praying for me and telling me I will be well. Their love, sweetness, and happiness to be there and help was exciting and funny and wonderful. I recognized faces of old friends, new friends, families, acquaintances of my wife and daughters. A lot of other faces I didn’t know, but they were there for friendship! It was wonderful to be among them and sharing the moment. I never knew I had so many friends, and I salute them with laughter and thanks for our presence together.
But, hey I’m easy. I talk to planets, plants, animals, history, and write about all that in my novels. Yeah, truth be known, kids: this ain’t all there is. So I wasn’t as surprised by the presence of wishers-well, as I was by their numbers.
I spent the pre- and post- op times talking to my caregivers and fellow patients, and observing the rhythm of the hospital’s CTICU, pre-op and “step-down unit” as a writer, letting a line spoken in the dark lead to a room with a dim but unerring light.
What mattered in those hospitals was love, concern, and acceptance. Everyone had a job to do, and did it together.
The bee hives set up on the hospital’s rooftops, on view from visitors’ waiting galleries were the show to the tell. And the sweet honey produced was not only metaphor but real, and available for purchase.
Fuck ICE, their believers, and their stupid-ass clown-car costumes.
Our love grows, and our care and concern for each other, in a world of stories to tell, and no wars allowed, diversity equality and integrity and inclusion always enriching our lives, creating even more wonder, mystery, and the simple pleasures of being alive to the world and to each other.
The rest of it, the irreality show, its Prexy and likeminded followers will choke on their own bile, and degenerate against themselves, and be destroyed by their perpetual hatred of a world filled with diverse peoples, religions, languages, sciences, genders, flora and fauna.
I look forward to meals I’ve never eaten before, and stories told with a magic that shares the wonder, mystery, and surprise of life.
We will survive.
Art always does.
As does the Earth, with her occasional angry volcanic outbursts, volatile shudders, and tempestuous deluges whether we have NOAA or not…
With love and laughter, and a score by Debussy and Stevie Wonder!
Onwards and upwards!
