11 September 2011

after the fall.

(ed. note: the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has seen a slew of reflections and tributes in all manner of media, many of them wrenchingly powerful. So. How to make your 9/11 piece stand out? By posting it on 9/12, that’s how.) 

Ten Junes ago I fell off my skateboard and woke up three weeks later. Wait—“woke up” isn’t quite right. I was in a drug-induced coma for a week, then my brain swelling (suddenly, miraculously) reversed course, the doctors at Harborview were able to ease up on the drugs and ditch plans to cut away a section of my skull—which is very much a cut-your-losses maneuver—and then (I’m told) I became cognizant, conversational. But my brain’s ability to make memories didn’t come back online for another couple weeks, and when it did, I found myself amidst circumstances I would’ve described as surreal, if I’d had the cognitive ability to parse the idea of multiple realities. Which I did not.

When your brain is compelled to rewire itself, relearn how to designate something for long-term memory, get it to stick, some weird shit happens. My brain had no shortage of rewiring to do—muscle memory was completely wiped, for example; I had to relearn much the non-breathing/heartbeating stuff your muscles do without having to think about it. The first memory that stuck that summer is the story of my 5-step journey from hospital bed to bathroom, and I can recall how it felt: as though I’d come awake for the first time, everything new but simultaneously familiar, comfortable. I felt completely fine, thought I was fine (and would continue to. My ongoing impression was that, man, a week ago I was messed up, but thank god I’m all good now. A week later, same deal). I shrugged off my buddy Brian’s attempt to help me to the loo, stood up, told my legs to start walking, and instead began melting into the floor. Brian caught me and we eventually resumed the trip. It all took much longer than anticipated, which sucked, because I had a bowel movement melting into my jammies. The rest of that memory is mainly—well, Brian is a very good friend. Other early memories also involve loved ones being good to me. My family was amazing, my girlfriend Erin was amazing, and tons of folks dropped by to visit—even my old friend Laura, who would become the love of my life and eventually agree to marry me. One afternoon I was sitting up in bed, talking with my beautiful, dark-haired girlfriend, when I looked over and saw my beautiful, red-haired girlfriend in the doorway. Had … had I somehow managed to have two girlfriends at once? Yes I had. Yes! I had. And they were both good with it, talking affectionately to me, to each other, enjoying each other’s company, as simultaneous girlfriends so rarely do. Of course, the red-head was my ex from college, who'd flown up to visit. But I had no sense of timeline on which to affix memories of my past; everything existed in the same wobbly present tense. On wakeful nights alone, the floor quiet and dark, I would pad slowly around the recovery floor of the hospital, trying to find the lounge area with the mini fridge with the juice boxes (it kept moving). Some nights felt wakeful even when they weren’t—I’d never had lucid dreams before, but now I did, and a few of my most vivid, tactile early memories were actually dreams, as when I commenced my nightly juice-box search, wandered down a hallway onto an (imaginary) sky bridge over a (ditto) atrium space, looked down, and saw rows and rows of fatally ill kids in wheelchairs lined up in front of a stage, where ‘N Sync was getting ready to perform a Make-a-Wish-type benefit concert. Wouldn’t you know it, there was an empty chair smack in the middle of this sea of sickly children, so I went and sat down. Recall, this is 2001; ‘N Sync ruled the land with Justin Bieber-like ubiquity. I was 26 and white and male, which meant my gathered opinion of ‘N Sync was as a pop cultural atrocity, and in my pre-brain injury life I’d spoken of them only ironically, like referring to them as New Sync on the Block or whatever. But tonight was different. Tonight was about the children. These poor kids, dying before they got a chance to live—except for tonight, because ‘N Sync was here to give them the night of their lives. A night to take with them to heaven. When the show started, I found that I knew all the words to all the songs—all of them, not just “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me” but songs I’d heard perhaps once, by extra-accident—and so stood and began to sing along, full-throatedly, while miming the top-half choreography happening onstage. A few songs in, Justin Timberlake pointed to me and beckoned me to come up with the band. Now, whether Justin did this because my talent was overwhelmingly apparent or because the loud, jazz-handed 6’9” dude surrounded by kids with cancer was too painful to watch, perhaps we’ll never know. What we do know is he didn’t regret it. I took stage right, fell in with the choreography, and began harmonizing in all the right places. This earned a few I’m-impressed sidelong glances from Justin, and eventually an invitation to take a vocal solo, which I accepted, dancing my way to front-center stage. I went off, the tiny invalids went nuts, end of dream. I spent the next day with a) multiple ‘N Sync songs I’d virtually never paid attention to running in my head, and b) the conviction that the concert had really happened. It was exponentially more tactile, more real than any other recent memory, and I wouldn’t talk myself out of it for weeks. As I said, weird shit.