“as soon as it was named
it ceased to exist”
– Miriam Sagan, “Spiral Jetty”

I don’t want to write about it.

I could deflect and try to describe the pregnant pause before letters meet the screen.  Hands near my jaw, suspended above the empty keys that sit patiently waiting.  An in drawn breath anticipating exhale…But that description would be a clever ploy to avoid what hesitates to be written.

This whole expression thing started out simply enough.  Following a thread.  Chronicle the daily (often banal) moments and try to find a gem of deeper meaning.  I’ve written about goats in heat, The Boxcar Children, and paltry WordPress statistics.  I’ve taken photos of plastic soldiers hugging and dead, maimed snakes in the road.

Pushing myself to find the power in vulnerability, I’ve even pulled the Superman move, peeling back cloth to reveal my tender heart (that’s ‘S’ for ‘Strength’).  Ok, ok, I did that.  I survived the naked telling.  But do I now need to write about my womb?

I don’t want to write about it and that’s what makes me suspect that maybe I’m supposed to.

Maybe the story comes in pieces. I’ve got twenty years of reproductive history and all the ways my womb has shaped my life.  Maybe these fragments are not in chronological time.

Perhaps it starts with today’s second opinion:
Statistics are good:  Chances are 98% benign, 2% malignant. But you don’t know which group you’re in.
The only way to know for sure (and get rid of it) is surgery.
There’s nothing to be done to stop recurrence (unless you want to remove your last remaining ovary).  This is in your genes.

From the mouth of an intelligent, medical doctor, is the suggestion “use your intuition.”

Intuition says that in the next three months I will not be undergoing surgery.  Intuition also suggests that Life is offering me an opportunity to learn something.

There is no book published, that opens to page 29 and reads “Jessica, this is what you are to do.”  Intuition says the book that tells what I did do, is yet to be written.

If I want to dissolve this growth and do not want to have surgery than I recognize that I am moving into the realm of miracles.  I’ll leave some room for those.

Miriam Sagan posts her poem inspired by Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and one line flames like a fire.

“as soon as it was named
it ceased to exist”

I’m seeking a name.  Maybe writing brings the miracle.

(read “Spiral Jetty” in its entirety at Miriam’s Well)