What the heck just happened?

An emergency appendectomy and a New Mexico recovery

Apr 01, 2023

Friends, hi!

It has been a minute. I missed our mid-March letter and let me tell you why: I had an emergency appendectomy! This included a fun ambulance ride, same-day surgery and all that my recovery entailed. I’ve since healed up and learned to laugh about it, in particular at myself at how hard the experience truly hit me; I keep telling anyone who will listen, I almost died!

I was never anywhere close to dying and I know it. But I suppose I could have. Some people do have a hard time with appendicitis! Especially if their appendix bursts, and on some level mine was getting there (“microscopically perforated” said the pathology report). All in all I caught it early and was very well looked after. I’m grateful to family and friends and all the hospital caregivers who stepped up to care for us and the kids.

I’ll be the first to admit that I did take it hard. More than the appendicitis, what was difficult for me to accept was this now clear and obvious throughline to my mortality that didn’t exist before, having had the extreme good fortune of an unblemished health record until now.

Subsequently, I began rolling big questions around in my head: How am I spending my time, who am I spending my time with, how do I think about my life and how I’ve lived it so far? Where am I putting my energy? How much life do I have left? Such profound, important, and on some level, trite and ridiculous questions.

What I mean to say is that these questions are deeply uncomfortable, and what does it mean to even ask them? Do the answers somehow direct the rest of our lives? Are we able to change anything if we don’t like the answers? Isn’t the point of happiness to live in the present, embrace gratitude, yada yada, where you could interpret the mere asking of questions as a fulfillment in and of itself?

To me, the process is circular.

I am one less appendix of course, but I don’t feel as if I have come out the other side in a completely new place. Perhaps my circle is wider. I’m less likely these days to spend my time doing something that doesn’t bring me joy. And I’ll admit that makes the scenery a tad more iridescent.

Trip to New Mexico

After the surgery I took a few days off work to recover then luckily we had a trip to New Mexico planned for the girls’ spring break wich allowed more time for my body and brain to resynchronize.

We spent the week in a gorgeous Airbnb owned by a Brooklyn photographer who styled the space with comfortable, elegant southwestern furniture and decor and stacks of gorgeous art books. We picked up some art supplies of our own and spent time drawing, painting, and adventuring to different mountain ranges. We dipped our toes in hot springs, climbed up to the thousand-year-old Gila cliff dwellings, and gorged ourselves on the red and green peppers of Tex-Mex cuisine. I kept a journal. It’s raw but if you’re curious about our trip, feel free to read it!

Outside our Airbnb at Old Mesilla in Las Cruces, NM

Our dughter in the desert near Organ Mountains

Whitesands National Park, an old saloon/opera house, pink architecture, cowboys eating pie in a cafe, Petroglyph on a boulder — Photos from our southern New Mexico trip (by Mark Staplehurst)

Announcements

I have been really productive with writing, inspired by my health fiasco and ensuing self-scrutiny. Most of my submissions that were out have now returned to me, and I’m waiting for the right moment to begin sending out new batches.

Exposition Review (a paying market) recently accepted a poem and I’ll admit, the thrill never goes away! It is also perfect timing for this poem, which is called “These Tenuous Things,” written a couple years ago as we were coming out of the pandemic. It is about the small things that light up our lives.

My pieces in Sixpence Society Literary Journal and Fulminare Review are still forthcoming, also.

What I’m Reading

Here are a few things I’ve enjoyed lately.

I finally finished the book The Sisters Brothers, left behind at our house by visitors many moons ago. I really enjoyed it. Had a similar western feel to our New Mexico travels and the characterization, pace and humor were excellent. There’s a movie of the book but I fell asleep halfway through it, so clearly wasn’t as compelling as Patrick DeWitt’s version.

“Our Hysterical Country” a poem by Anya Maria Johnson

I would like to write like that.
To pass a town called Killingsworth and break its verdict
down, with authority. To say,
“America, tell me, what is killing worth?”
or,
“America, what is worth killing?”

“A New Kind of Dan” a short story by Kyle Seibel in Trampset

We were certain something like that would happen. He would emerge from the struggle a new kind of Dan. We couldn’t wait to welcome him back to our world.

“The Resident in Room 402” a short story by Lisa Thornton in Smokelong Quarterly

I’m going to see Jesus, he tells me once his lung sounds and wound diameters are recorded. But he is worried, he says, that his family will not want him there.

On my to-read list: