Two weeks ago, give or take, I died. (I got better.) (I continue to get better, so thank you for your thoughts and prayers in the interim.)

[summary: I went in for a heart catheterization which was going well until a piece of plaque tore loose and ripped through my aortic wall and triggered a “widowmaker” heart attack. My team at Piedmont Newnan revived me, installed a stent, and when I was awake, transferred me to the ICU at Piedmont Atlanta, where I spent another twelve days before being discharged.]

You might very well have been hoping I’d share my experience of “moving towards the light” or something in that vein — sorry, I have no such experience to share with you. I have absolutely no memory of the surgery or of the pain afterwards.

Instead and ironically, the event is not so much a turning point (although it is certainly that) as a conclusion to a series of frames that presented themselves to me shortly before this all began.

The first is an essay, The Mountains I Lost, the Memories I Found, by Jodi Ettenberg. In it, the author describes both the “bereavement grief” we suffer when losing a loved one and “living grief,” when we reach a point in our lives that we must confront the loss of what we thought our future might hold. (It’s a very long essay, but it is worth your time.)

The second is an assignment I gave to the Backstreet Community Arts Writers Group last month. They were being lazy (again) and so I told them to bring in a list of every single unfinished project that they had started, thought about starting, whatever ad infinitum. You can read mine here.

In other words, I had already reached that phase of life where one starts thinking of what an “end-game” might look like, and now my temporarily reduced physical and mental powers have brought that into even sharper focus.

Is the universe aligned with my new insights? Of course not. In the last month or so I have had at least five offers to produce or help produce new works or ventures in addition to those I’m already committed to not finishing. Who thinks this is an appropriate use of the universe’s energies? I for one have questions.

More details in the coming days, both here and over at Lichtenbergianism.com. Cras melior est, as we say.