I Just Let Go

My daughter Kari in Western Australia. She is currently traveling the world and has taught me a great deal about letting go. Photo by: Tom Kelley.

It was the worst time for me to leave for the weekend for my Unity Women's Retreat. It is the start of a new school year with all the complications of being part of a team of six teachers trying to steer a team of 120 thirteen-year-old students down a shiny path of enlightenment and academic achievement. (If you're not a teacher, think "herding cats.") In addition to this I am taking a graduate course online. Throw in all the fuss that comes with a big family wedding for me to help with on the following weekend and the conditions just aren't prime for a getaway. That also means it's the best time to leave. Just leave. Let go.

It was worth every moment! We were a group of 40 women of every age and background. We talked, we meditated, we held each other in tears and laughter, we swam in the ocean, released our fears into a campfire, ate together and healed. Much of what I released was residual fear from my SCAD.

My weekend Women's Retreat opened with a reading of this poem. My first thought was that I must share it with my SCAD sisters as well. With so little known about SCAD there comes a point where we just simply must let go.

So here is the poem. Read it slowly.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

~ Rev. Safire Rose

The Heart Knows

My beating heart and my busy mind will forever be in an inextricable dance, an interminable conversation. I have accepted it as my post-SCAD gift. The world praises the connection of the heart and mind in song and poetry and the bond between the two is venerated as a symbol of being a whole being. Some people walk a long path to achieve the connection. Therapy or drugs. Art or prayer. There are many ways humans find to get there. Perhaps there is no faster way to get there than to have your previously healthy heart suddenly and inexplicably go awry. In a flash, the two become partners in living, companions and guardians of each other. In this, then, as SCAD survivors, we may have become truly blessed. 

The other night as I tried to fall asleep, the dynamic duo was chattering away again. They were getting a little worked up. The heart started it, and started it for a good reason.

Boom-boom. Boom-boom. Pounding away. Louder when I turned to my left side; softer when I turned to my right. 

"Oh, good heavens, now what?"

"Something's not right!" The heart pounded.

"I think it's anxiety, with the first days of the school year starting and all. We shall chill," said the mind. I eventually dozed, but sometime in the night the chatter started again.

"I'm telling you, something's not right!" Boom-boom. Boom-boom.
.
"Go to sleep!"

But the heart continued with its higher-than-normal resting pulse around 90 - 96 bpm.  So I got my stethoscope out. Another post-SCAD gift was my interest in cardiac anatomy, EKGs, and listening to heartbeats. So I purchased a stethoscope from Amazon.com. Everyone in the house has been listened to, from the Boxer with his thunderous rhythm, to the old Boston Terrier with the swishy syncopation of his mitral valve prolapse, to the bearded dragon and his rapid reptilian pitter-patter.  Mostly, I am soothed by the sound of my own heart, its beautiful, steady beat and I listen in gratitude for its healing.

The other night, though, that beautiful, steady beat was indeed faster than normal. Though I felt oh-so-tired from those first days of meeting new students and starting back into the classroom routines, my heart sounded as if it was gearing up to run a marathon or it was a little bird that had just returned from a long flight.

"I'm telling you...." pounded the heart.

"Ok, I'm listening." Mind went into action. The usual run-down of questions: Pain or pressure in the chest? Arm? Jaw? Nope. Breathing ok? Yes. But I was hot and a little foggy. I thought to take my temperature and there I found the problem. 101 degrees Fahrenheit. A fever.

Fun biological fact: heart rate increases10 beats per minute per degree centigrade. I found it after a lot of googling. 

Quickly, very quickly, all the elements of your typical viral infection started: body ache, chills and (I'll spare you the details) the gastro-intestinal events. For the first time ever, I had to take a sick day during the first week of school. 

SCAD survivors, you understand -- the hyper-vigilance we live with, the all-consuming alliance of heart and mind. Sometimes it is lovely, a metaphorical marriage, wise, perceptive, intuitive of all things seen and felt. In this case the alliance proved practical. This was the first time I have been just normally sick with a plain ol' "bug" since I have had my SCAD. No need to panic but I appreciated the tip-off that something was wrong. 

"I told you so," said the heart.

And she was right.

I Had a Heart Attack and It Was Hilarious!

To get an edge on the humor, watch this video from The American Heart Association's Go Red For Women campaign. It features actress Elizabeth Banks showing how women do heart attacks.

A couple weeks ago, our principal asked the teaching staff to post a highlight from our summer on an online survey. The survey results were used to play a match-up game among the staff during our first teacher workshop day and it was a great way to chat and ease back into our school year.  

There was no way I was going to enter what first came to mind. Instead, I said Cruised Casco Bay for my 50th birthday. That wouldn't freak anybody out.

The highlight I really wanted to list? Attended luncheon with four other women and we sat at a table laughing about our near-fatal heart attacks. I know better. This response in my workplace would have gone over like a lead balloon.  

I know about the lead ballon effect because I joked about my SCAD once -- just once-- at a team meeting. We were all very happy about getting a new water fountain, the type that's filters and fills a water bottle. One of my colleagues remarked on how the water in our building tastes terrible and wondered if it was even safe to drink. I replied, "It's probably fine. I drank it for a whole year and the only thing that happened to me was my heart blew up!"

Silence. Horrified expressions. I had put my big survivor foot in my mouth. My colleagues began talking solemnly about how awful that time was, the night they got the call, the weeks of my recovery, having to process with the students. My remark was too much. They had some residual trauma as well, and I had ventured too far into the dark side with my humor. 

Indeed, heart attack humor needs to stay in the heart attack club. What a delight it was, then, to meet four SCAD survivors this summer at the Samoset Resort in Rockport Maine. With the exception of one woman, who was a wonderful support to me right after my SCAD two years ago, we were all meeting for the first time. All of us live in Maine and fit the unexpected criteria for dissecting arteries - young, healthy, educated, active and vibrant.

Before the napkins were unfurled on our laps and forks stuck into food, the stories were flying -- and they were funny! Here were my peeps. Here is where I could let lose with the dark humor. 

Our humor seemed to most often come from the memory of trying oh-so-hard to maintain our composure while we slowly and silently slipped into what might have been our demise. 

This is how we do it. This is how a lady has a heart attack. She might -- oops! -- feel a little pop or pressure in her chest. Maybe a little gas bubble. A little tingle in the arm or a little bit of stress in the jaw. A little flutter. A little shaky. (These are all "little"). She lays down, just for a little. Or she goes on hoping it will pass because there are things to do, work to be finished, children to be brought somewhere, or dinner to be made. (These things to do are all "big" in her mind).  

One thing is for certain, we are most definitely not having a heart attack. Can't be. We demand that EKG machines be rechecked. We question the need for emergency transport. We prefer to drive ourselves to have that little something checked. Maybe later, maybe next week. After we mow the lawn. After we take a walk or massage the kink out of that muscle. That's all it is, right? A pulled muscle. Or maybe a burp.

Our collective stories all had these elements. As we sat there telling our survivor tales, the wide expanse of blue sky and sparkling ocean, which was our backdrop, fogged over into a wall of gray pulling us in closer and closer until there was nothing more to do but to embrace the darkened sky and laugh some more at our own ridiculousness, at our unbelievable predicaments, at our survival.

Before we parted, we hugged and talked about meeting up again and finding more Maine SCAD survivors. I hope we do. Until we meet again, I will keep my dark humor reigned in.