Take My Breath Away…

Sorry to make that Berlin reference.
So, nothing quite as humbling as having to rely on others to help you just…breathe. I’ve spent several scary days literally doing nothing more than trying to breathe normally. My husband spent two sleepless nights in the ER with me and my mom actually flew out from the midwest to help take care of me. Takes the wind out of the sails of the “me, I’m immortal” feelings that someone my age (only 34 after all!) can often have. Missing AWP was a drag, but really, I am just happy I am still alive. Puts things in perspective and also reminds me about my own dreaded and hated physical frailty, which I can’t really ignore although I’d like to. I used to play basketball and soccer, for heaven’s sake, I white-water rafted and rappelled and mountain hiked for kicks and loved horseback riding and all that kind of cool fun stuff. Now I’m like, gee, hope I can go to the grocery store on my own soon, hope I’m healthy enough to go teach a class every day in March, hope I’m healthy enough to…well, you get the point, nothing too challenging on my list right now.
I was thinking of all those literary cliches of sick women – you know, the cousin in Heidi, the young guy in the Secret Garden, all those laudanum-waving women in Austen and Bronte. Hey, isn’t the sea air supposed to be good for people like me, according to those books?

So, in the universe, all bad must be countered by good, or so, sometimes, it seems. The day I got the gigantic steroid shot and albuterol/oxygen treatment at the hospital, I also found out I won the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg prize, along with Kelli Russell Agodon. It was a shock and I am very grateful for the money (lately, it seems like I’ve been scrimping and saving just to buy stamps! and I have about $300 in my bank account right now…how could I have afforded AWP again?) especially with all the extra costs of the last move. I haven’t managed to actually process the win or celebrate yet, but thanks to all of you who sent me notes and encouraging comments. Thank goodness for people who think it’s a good idea to give money to poets. And I’m very happy to have Kelli’s name right there with me.

For those of you following the story of our rental adventures, our propane tank was returned (un-repossessed?) and our landlord had it refilled for us free of charge to make up for the inconvenience. Sigh of relief.

PS Yes, I am feeling much better, thanks for your well-wishes! I think the combination of throat and chest infections are finally dying off and I blew a 400 on the peak flow meter tonight, which is pretty darn close to normal.
PSS To balance out all that depressing health stuff, some cute baby polar bear videos for you:
http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/polarbear/videos.html