Wonderful news - I have left home.  Not only have I left, but I have done so alone, without the assistance of a driver, helper or walking stick, as those tools are now obsolete!  A fine day it is, when a simple liberty like walking out of doors alone can be savored like an exclusive privilege.  Carrying the computer was troubling, but the taste of independence proved more delicious than the Cuban sandwich that lured me.  It will be some weeks yet before I am free of the knot in my back, but today I am free enough to walk 1.5 blocks, and that is great news.

There are some thanks in order, and they are for you.  You who have smothered me in your good wishes, emails, foodstuffs, cards, books, dvds, gifts (including an ETCH-A-SKETCH!) and visits - may my gratitude reach out and kiss you three times on the cheeks of your choice.  There is no better thing than to be cared for at just the right time, and this has been that time for me.  While I am still a bit slow, and unable to bend forward with any ease or precision, I would like to announce that I am now in need of a person to whom I may be helpful.  If you are out there, and need a word of encouragement, a teatime companion or other low-impact assistance, please tell me about it.  There is no better medicine than caring for another person, and I will heal much faster if I can be of service.  I just remembered this last night.

I was on the phone with someone who has been a surprisingly present and solid support to me over the last 2 months of various and sundry difficulties including, but not limited to 3 events worthy of deep grief, a fractured and poorly casted thumb, a sister's baby daddy drama, a conceptual dilemma concerning time based art practices and the existence of god, several job losses, recurring night terrors, a spontaneously sparked and snuffed out romance, the death of Michael Jackson, an armpit rash, an issue regarding graphic scoring practices in contemporary music via planetary transits, 68 bad hair days in a row, and the projectile architect incident (aka the back injury).  This friend of mine began talking to me about his concerns, and maybe for the first time, I realized that his summer has been at least as tumultuous as mine, very likely more, and he has been present for me each and every day, listening and listening and listening, and never once telling me to shut the hell up (excepting occasions of self-depricating or destructively hopeless talk).  My friend, let's call him Chris, was so giving and attentive that I may have assumed the troubles weighing on him weren't weighing on him very heavily, but last night I realized that I'd gotten that mixed up.  It wasn't because Chris' problems were less troubling that he was able to support me, it was because he supported me that his problems were less troubling.

Some years ago, when I was doing that part of growing up marked by the realization that one must take care of onesself, that there are no knights in shining armor waiting in the wings for a cue to rescue, I got the idea that life was a B.Y.O.Hero event.   It is tough, accepting that I have to conjure the saving grace within myself, that no one can heal me but me, and I think I got bent out of shape about it back then, primarily because I didn't think I'd ever have the guts to be the Hero that could save a wreck like me.  That is why we practice, because I think most of us lack the faith that we can pull our own weight, at least not while we're carrying all that freaking baggage.  The trunks and cases and sacks we're hauling require a complex system of pulleys, casters and ratchets to make the trip, and we know now, thanks to Aristotle, that the employment of deus ex machina is weak, at best, because a true plot resolution must arise internally to have any resonant vigor or integrity whatsoever.  Why does the last-minute, crane-lowered savior not seem to hold water?  Because it does not happen like that off stage, and no one's life is improved by hoping it will.

That said, I have felt recently that you have been my miraculous hero.  I told a friend that I felt like the love and prayers and help that have come to me this week were in fact a deus ex machina, an unlikely and unprompted savior swooping in waving a confetti-spraying magic wand.  She pointed out that this is not true.  The plot device Aristotle criticized was so shunned for coming from outside of the tangled mess of the story, rather than rising up from within it.  She explained that your help has come because of the investment I have made in you over the years and months and hours that my plot has thickened, and it is only logical that because I have nurtured our relationship that it would be strong enough to hold me if and when I lost my grip.  Every good magician knows that magic is made of illusion which require diligent practice to create.  Nothing spooky happens.  It's not a miracle, it's math. 

I have not taken as many math classes as most people, having completely skipped high school and buried my head in art and music throughout college, so I may be unclear on this.  But it seems to me that it is a good practice to be my own hero by generating kindness, extending a hand so that I will remind you of your inner hero, and your hand will extend back, and that all the arms reaching back and forth will weave a safety net for us.  It's true that I have to draw the god out of my inner machine, but it isn't true that I can do it alone.  You've taught me how by watching you, and soon one day I'll show you that same magic trick when you forget it, and both of us will suffer a little less. 

Thank you.