five year eye-blink

The me of 5 yrs ago, at this very moment i type, was laying in an ICU bed, hooked to machines, drainage sacs filling slowly at my neck, a jigsaw swath cut across my head, wondering where i'd be in 5 days much less 5 years, thoughts of the future reduced by brain tumor to small bits, all durations now measured by the length of time to the next medical event: the next treatment, the next doctor appointment, the next specialist, the next MRI, the next follow-up, the next moment of being swallowed by black pools of fear and uncertainty. Reaching backward through time, the me of this moment is watching the icu me, saying to look past the immediate, to summon the strength to place yourself five years into the future. I am telling myself that a mere five years from now you'll be alive, having a dream-like weekend:

friday you'll have dinner w/ m and discuss her grad-school rejection and how outside affirmation doesn't matter as much as the doing. later you'll see The White Ribbon, the 1st of 5 movies you'll see in 48 hours. Saturday, you'll run around the mt tabor reservoir; Later you'll see old friends in old neighborhood and context will widen as they are changed but not really; Later you'll see Brute Force; later you'll attend a glorious and unique celebration dinner where issues of life, art, fear intersect in smashing magnificence, food and wine and drawing breath; Sunday, you'll see the inspiring and tremendous Syndromes and a Century. You'll have breakfast and read the sunday times. Later you'll see Kings and Queen. Later you'll see Red Road. Earlier, as you're en route to pick up the footage for the last short film you directed you'll see the hospital up on the hill where you're currently recovering. You'll note the normal sensation of the afternoon, the rain, the drivers, the walkers, the bikers, all moving with a normal unhurried gait, all caught in the splendid gift of simply being. You'll know that at this very moment, five years hence, there are others arriving at the hospital, choked w/ fear but you right now you are just a man in the passenger seat, headed east on Hawthorne, thrilled to be alive, remembering the strange gift/s of trauma, the radiant and sometimes transcendant power. And you'll keep going.