Falling Leaf Productions: The Heart of Thor

...AND HERE IT IS:

 HIGH DESERT SWASHBUCKLING

I  DWELL ON THE MOSTLY DRY FLOOR OF AN ANCIENT INLAND SEA, LONG SINCE DRIED UP AND RECEDED INTO THE MILLENNIA, LEAVING ONLY THE GEOLOGIC MEMORY IN FOSSILS AND STRATA THAT TELLS THE TALE, THAT MAKES ME SURE THAT THIS IS TRUE.  THE SUN BEARS HARD ON THE EARTH AS WE WALK IN THE VALLEYS ALONG WITH THE DEER, THE BEARS AND THE RATTLESNAKES AND, ALSO,  FISH FOR TROUT IN LOCAL CREEKS.

…..NOW, I SWIM IN SHALLOW POOLS DOWN AT SPIRIT GORGE; TAKING COWBOY BATHS; SPLASHING MY FEET AGAINST THE COOL WATER AND WATCHING THE SPLASH FLY AND SHOW THEMSELVES IN RAUCOUS CHAOS AGAINST THE BLUE BLUE SKY AND THE LOOMING SKYSCRAPER/CLIFF FACES, THE SUN HAVING JUST PASSED OVERHEAD AND NOW PREPARING TO SET IN CALIFORNIA, OVER COUSIN PACIFIC OCEAN, LIVING SEA AND STUNNING COVES FOR PIRATES TO VENTURE INTO FOR COVER, HIDING THEIR SHIPS AMIDST THE SANDSTONE FORMATIONS THAT LOOM TALLER THAN THE MASTS, HOUSING SMALL CRABS THAT MAKE BUBBLES WITH THEIR MOUTHS THAT CRACKLE AND POP IN THE RECESSES OF THEIR DAMP CREVICES…ECHOING INTO ETERNITY.

It is paradoxical to think of ships and boats in this desert.  I have only built a little skiff, some years ago, with a friend and he gave it to me when he took off for larger waters.  I have not actually manned it on water and it waits to be rejuvenated.  I am pretty much a land lubber, having only once maneuvered an ocean-going kayak ‘bout 5 miles across to Sea Wolf Island, near Inverness, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada; one-manned my large canoe down the Rio Grande (with a 5 gallon tub of water in front to keep it pointed downhill), worked the long oars of rafts in the San Juan and the Chama; learning to steer them and tricks such as: head straight for the obstacle or rock you intend to avoid and just before you crash into it, you backpedal the oars and it magically catches the current around the object, often causing the craft to make one revolution and then you are ‘back in business’.  Nonetheless, the images that I conjure up recently and that I have appreciated relate to a  Winslow Homer painting of a bearded fisherman in a sturdy little boat, filled with a coupla large soft bellied fish and back rowing in the sea which is dangerously close to being deadly in the sense that the waves are getting larger, the swells more turgid, the waves rough and choppy and the prospects of safety are unclear.  I row with all my might this sturdy craft and glance off into the distant horizon and see….. half the sky is golden and clear, like the fish’s bellies and the other half is dark and threatening worse weather.  I wonder, as I row, which condition I most certainly will encounter; the lady or the tiger?  I see, also, a sailing schooner, with large masts off a league or so from me, towards the storm.  This is my predicament.

The last thing I remember was the name of the ship on the side as I struggled to not drown and clutched at the ship cladding: Flying Castle of the Broken Hearts, and then yanked out of the drink (like my ancestor, John Howland, a young servant, fell off the Mayflower, grabbed a ‘trailing rope’  and was pulled back on board, ensuring that I would be born some 400 years later!).  It is by strong fingers grasping for a short rope on the high seas; that….he….and I….exist. There were strangely dressed Pirates, it seems; people hovering over my outstretched body as they searched for veins to remove, after being carried deep into the icy hold of the ship, to a room that was large and had only the  rectangular colors of deep blue and stark white.  I was strangely unafraid and they, oddly, un-oppressive, yet intent on their task at hand. Then there was sleep; deep sleep that fell upon me……

I awoke in a cabin room filled with strange devices, a tube in my throat that was deeply disturbing, tubes from my nostrils and tubes and wires all over my body, all of which had to be constantly attended to, like the ropes and rigging of the ship; to prevent tangling to spaghetti.  I was alive, but not independent; something big had happened and I was still alive.  Now I remembered that the pirates had warned of me what they would do to me: cut my breastplate clean through, then spread my ribs apart, take blood vessels from my leg and body, stop my heart for upwards of 2 hours, sew the new vessels onto the cut end of my original arteries, and then start my heart again and sew me up.  And they painted me blue from the ends of my beard to the tips of my toes!

I fell asleep again and in the night I felt creatures, like silky roots with fingers that were gently but intently grasping my legs and trying to coax them down to their fairly homes underground.  Then I saw horrible bands of dreadful creatures, clustered together in groups that had only one goal, it was clear, which was to relentlessly tear into me and kill me, over and over again, each swarm/group chopping, biting, tearing at me from limb to limb, then allowing the next cluster of ghouls; disgusting, dreadful with unbelievably horrid expressions, but tall and thin, glowing murky neon tones in their auras; to do the same….kill me dreadfully with no other goal but that…..I awoke incredibly relieved to realize it was a dream and the fairy fingers were the pulsing and randomly reappearing from pillows they had put on my calves to prevent bedsores and the like.  My consciousness was chasing my unconscious for clues and a way to come to grips with what had happened.  Somewhere deep inside me, I could revisit the fact that groups of people had stood over me and butchered me in unthinkable ways and with immoveable resolve and determined to, as it turns out…..fix me by breaking me in half and stopping and restarting my heart.  This layering of images and emotions then began to engage my imagination.

As I watched shifts of nurses come and go; evening and daylight, each one I feared would take advantage of my helplessness and do something untoward and, with each new care-giver, I found only different kinds of care and love….despite my apprehension that strangers had my life in their grasp and that they would be tough and overbearing.  They sometimes appeared potentially, only to surprise with kindness and concern and wanted to hear what I was feeling.  This situation led to a narrative that is well dramatized by the movie, *Stardust......where the ugly old witch sought to yank out the pulsing heart of the heroine, an incarnated star; recombined from star dust, just like we really, really are... and, in particular, the sections that described the flying pirate ship and the burly, harsh toned and murderous pirates and their heartless captain, only to slowly discover that they were actually pussycats who were intent on protecting the crusty reputation of their pirate ship and their captain, who was the epitome of gentle sensibilities!  Paradoxical, enigmatic….and humorous, to boot.  Gentle swashbucklers; very sharp swords and daggers, implements of torture as the skilled healer/surgeon’s necessary tools.

This was (and is) getting to be sorta fun!

My Captain 'Mainmast' is obviously adored by his staff, burley as they appear and they play along with his humorous rhetoric about 'not tolerating errant nursing' and the like and he, like Captain DeNiro, is the most approachable person there, it turns out; with far reaching interests in many things, including alternate lifestyles (such as my own).  The male nurses are bearded and fast moving, soldiers and homesteaders; you feel like you are tossed around, only to discover that it never hurts and is always completely competent and we had long conversations at 3 in the morning, about beauty and saving the world, while new intravenous tubes were being inserted.  Then, the narrative blossoms with my new shop helper driving down just to see me and she is now the cabin boy who is really a lovely young woman. My daughters are like princess/pirates from far-away exotic lands; competent, strong and intent only on protecting the treasure (which, I discover, is..me...). My wife is the matron of the ship, modeling for the beautifully chiseled figurehead. My son is the ship’s carpenter.  There is a host of cooks in the galley, concocting all sorts of culinary delights; fit for any civilized pirate or rescued fisherman.  

I am **‘Blue Beard’ now , a simple strong, capable fisherman who barely escaped death on the high seas, was on the verge of a heart attack and was rescued by the serendipitous ship of pirate/surgeons, like doctors without borders or Greenpeace Robin-Hood type pirates or burly bikers with Teddy Bears for the poor children during holidays.  

I have enjoyed this method for processing my open-heart surgery at the wonderful Heart Hospital in Albuquerque, which also lies atop the dry seabed of the great inland sea of 100 million years ago, whose length was from the gulf of Mexico to the Arctic circle and 600 miles across, a  narrowest point, like the site of a restricted artery in huge scale, was between right here at the ‘End of the Rockies’ and the Oklahoma Panhandle.  

I have recovered well and quickly so far and my basic guide, emotion and sensibility is….gratitude and fascination about this ‘troubled voyage…. in calm….weather’.  

Happy High Desert Swashbuckling, Mateys!

*This just goes to show that there 'is nothing new under the sun' and most thoughts are borrowed, except for the fact that there are no two snowflakes that are alike, each one intricately 'crafted' to be totally unique....I guess that principle is 'nothing new........'.

**(not the one of pirate fame; actually he was, if anything, never a pirate but a no-account wife/baby killer...not much of anything to talk about, just an archetypal, bizarre man who should...just recede into forgotten history).

                               -Thor Sigstedt, Spirit Valley, New Mexico, Sept. 2017

The Facts-A timeline about "Falling Leaf Productions" and then my heart:

I watched a single leaf as it detached itself from a very tall narrow-leaf cottonwood tree a fall or two ago and, against the blue blue sky and in the mildly eddying morning breezes, it took a long time to actually make it to the ground; having to waft around carelessly, catch updrafts, swirl and create it's own flight patterns, play and act very alive till it finally touched the good earth and begun it's next iteration as a piece of dry fluff and then compost, etc.  The experience touched me profoundly and made me think about such timely things as, 'when and how does a blossom, a leaf 'decide' to detach' and it seems to be an important sort of event that bears some scrutiny and reflection.  The experience was reinforced when I took some photos the next day; of the leaves falling and I decided to swing 180 degrees at one point and snap a snapshot of the tall hill/cliff/escarpment to the south and, when I was going over the photos later, I almost deleted one that had a strange blob in the bottom left of the landscape until I realized that one single leaf had drifted down just in time to get caught by my camera and was unusually large looking as it was probably a few inches from my camera lens.  I ended up using this as a sort of logo for Falling Leaf Productions; a facebook page and a place to put things of interest that might relate to what I am talking about here.

In the meantime, I had experienced, over the last year or more, some very vague sensations that suggested to me that ' I have a heart' and that it beats and acts a little odd; all very subtle and I finally mentioned this to my doctor and she suggested that I see a cardiologist, which I thought was a little extreme, but I did finally make an appointment.  My blood pressure was, sporadically, a little high and they also did an ECG and the heart doctor suggested I do a stress test, which, after and while fast walking on the treadmill for a long time and not feeling particularly over stressed; I figured that I 'aced' the test and soon-after cancelled my follow-through appointment.  I was surprised by the doctor when he tracked me down a few days later and personally telephoned me and  made it clear that he wanted to see me and talk to me. This trail led to a venal catheterizing to check out my heart arteries and, at the end, I heard the doctor say, "You can go home now" and then some things about 75-90% blockage, 'sorry is isn't good news' and then, at the post-op room I heard a male nurse say " and you are going to have open-heart surgery' and I said, "What?" and he said, "Oh, I'm sorry; I thought you knew" and then the doc came in and gave me the news and said he would talk to the surgeon about all this and that was that....

So, now I am scheduled for August 24th to have this procedure and I am basically ok with it and somewhat concerned that I will overdo it after the surgery sometime and am gearing toward a more gentle lifestyle for a while and looking forward to a way better life in the future, what with a new diet (found out on a Wednesday and completely changed my diet on a Thursday; and I basically like it.... ) and a long, healthy and playful life, much like the life of the falling leaf.

More shall be revealed......I will try to post how the operation went and other pieces of interest to friends and concerned people. Oh yeah, I will be at the Heart Hospital in Albuquerque for about a week, more or less and then back home.  My cell number is 660-5835 and my email is:  adventuretrails@earthlink.net 

Well, I have been slow to update my progress, and now I am feeling up to writing down some recent history and state how I am.  Just as I expected, I was strong enough to survive the actual open heart surgery process, which included a team of venal specialists to go over my body searching quickly for 3 good candidates for the splices.  They found some good ones in my wrist area but rejected when I talked about how I didn't want to jeopardize my work which relies on fully functioning arms
And chose one from my lower left leg and then ,after I drifted off; two from my mammary area in the chest, which were already attached to my heart, which resulted in 4 splices (my terminology) rather than 6.  I was fairly ebullient right after the surgery so was surprised to be subdued to be more lethargic the next day, once the fancy anaesthesias wore off.  On the third day I experienced atrial fibrillation, which felt like internal earthquake.  At one point after they had mostly quelled the a fib, three women ran into the room together, almost tripping over themselves and with wide eyes and the look of fear only to discover that my toothbrush motions had fooled the monitors into signalling a major "event"

Throughout the early days, nothing presented to me was at all appealing to munch on a.nd so I was behind somewhat in my real foods.  It is still a little like that but was greatly eliviated by Sophia buying some live lettuce, great fruits and other more alive veggies and other foods and drinks.  I HAD to  relearn how to carry myself, breathe correctly and work with a full plate of spaghetti-like tubes.  Slowly the battery of tubes with feeds and monitors have been yanked and I should be walking unaided today and go home Wednesday.

What I would say is that my heart was literally stopped for over a hour and a half! Sand that is no joke and even for a relatively healthy, strong person, it is a major life event and nothing to sneeze at, and if you do you might re-break your breastplate and then where are you.

I am working up a great and humorous tale based on these wonderful people and it will involve pirates on the high seas and some surprising ways they have of masking their true natures and will involve an infamous brigand,Bluebeard (hint: they died my whole body light blue from the beard down....argh...).