Week 3, Day 1

How I’m Learning to Build All My Roads on Today — the Hard Way!

And to be grateful for the hidden gifts of a health scare

And you learn to build all your roads on today Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn… That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul, Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

~from “You Learn” by Jorge Luis Borges

Nothing like a health scare for a wake-up call.

The kind of wake-up call that says, only today is guaranteed.

The gorgeous Borges poem, You Learn, reminds us to build all our roads on today. The future’s iffy.

Boy, can I relate! I’m coming out (knock on wood) of a health scare that included a half-day in the emergency room getting all kinds of tests — blood work, X-rays, EKG, and a CAT Scan.

Kaiser takes chest pains seriously even though mine was barely a blip and didn’t hurt. But the lightheadedness and shortness of breath really had me worried last week. When the advice doctor said, well…let’s have you come in, I did.

The tests were neutral as far as ER was concerned. No heart attack. No stroke. No nasty blood clots.

But I still don’t know what’s causing my symptoms.

I expect to find out more at my upcoming video MD visit. There I’ll ask her about the words on the test results that scare me: aortic and coronary artery calcifications, bilateral apical scarring (asbestos-related — go figure), and aortic atherosclerosis.

In other words, I could be feeling fine and yet still be a ticking health bomb. Heart. Lungs. Brain. Scary.

But real since heart disease, stroke, and cardio-pulmonary hypertension run as they say, in my family. My dad died at age 56 of a massive coronary. That and my age put me in a higher risk category. Bummer. My 91-year-old mom has CPHT and is doing very well, thanks to a vassal-dilater with the stage name of Viagra! Who’da thunk?

So the take-home message screams: Get your ducks in a row! You don’t got all century to mess around!

This is a call to action for me.

Get my paperwork done. You know, the ones you keep putting off — the will, the advanced directive, the power of attorney, that stuff. My mom has all that stuff organized and my sister and I have three copies each. Me? I’m about to get started.

See, I’m sorta superstitious. Isn’t making out your will kinda like telling the Universe you’re ready, bring it on? Feels like that to me.

Yet passing without that sorted out is a mess. Not one I’d want to stick on my friends or my family. And I don’t have kids. So, if it’s to be, it’s up to me. I’ll keep you posted.

Speaking of if it’s to be, that’s the other underscored message from gorgeous Borges.

Plant my garden and decorate my own soul.

Exactly. I know there’s no knight in shining armor or caretaking mommy coming to bring me flowers or take on my worries.

If it’s to be, it’s up to me.

And this recent scare has me thinking, if it’s to be, it might have to be soon. Real soon.

Time to think about legacy. Yes, I may have 20 or more years. Or not. What if I only have 5 or 1? No, I’m not inviting that scenario, but this biological ticking clock doesn’t reveal what time it’s set for.

Denial or ignorance doesn’t stop its ticking. Oops.

So my new big question is — drum roll please — is the garden I’ve planted, and the one I’m planting now the right gardens? Or is something missing?

Have I planted beans and carrots when I want pumpkins, eggplants, and basil? If I’m saving the best for last, now is that time!

That live today like it’s all you got is sage advice I never followed.

Now it hangs over my head like a Damaclesean sword. Pointing right at my heart. No pressure, right?

Part of me wants to speed up, rush my novel into publication-ready or not, pump up the volume on my ebooks, poetry collections, blog compilations, and other various and sundry masterpieces. Run ’em up on Amazon and see who salutes, I mean, buys.

But that doesn’t feel right. I don’t want to die with my music still in me, but mostly it’s on Google docs. Before publication, I want my debut novel to be the best I know how to make it. And it’s not there yet.

However, this plotting, plodding tortoise can still pick up the pace without going full-on hare. Maybe a frog with strong back legs that can leap over small obstacles and get ‘er done.

But not at the expense of decorating my soul.

By that I mean, taking time to breathe in the best of life I can. Spending quality time with beloved family and faraway friends. Getting over to England to see my niece and grandniece. As well as visiting my mom, which is already planned for September. We’re going to make it very, very special.

That decoration also means all the other unexpressed parts of me. Diving full-on into mystical wisdom, playing full out with clowning, improv, and Commedia Dell’Arte, and using these gifts somehow, someway for the greater good.

Since I don’t think that time machine will be invented before this new frog I’m becoming croaks, I gotta find another way to help save the planet.

She, like me, may not have much time left. But oh, do I hope I’m wrong. In any event, let my personal urgency bless Mama GAIA as well.

Gracious thanks go to Diana C. and Vicky Prokopi for this poetic prompt!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!