The first time my subconscious spoke to me in song, I was in high school. I was going through a very emotional, difficult time and couldn't figure out what was so upsetting. Then, when talking it over with my dad, I suddenly found the line of a Duran Duran song going through my head, and I went into hysterics: crying because it so brilliantly encapsulated exactly what my fears were, and laughing because revelation via Duran Duran lyrics seemed so... frivolous.



I spent the weekend with Shawn at his parents' place. His dad spent 8 hours in surgery on Thursday, first as they replaced a heart valve, and, when it was discovered that an aorta was abnormally small and had been damaged by the valve insertion, an emergency bypass. He was off and on the heart/lung machine, and the last time, they almost weren't able to bring him back.

In all honesty, I wasn't expecting him to make it. He's had so many health problems, and, perhaps most importantly, I wasn't sure he wanted to make it.

They kept him in a drug-induced and maintained coma for the next few days. His systems started failing: kidneys, lungs. They thought he might have the first stages of pneumonia. Then, Sunday, they were finally able to diagnose some symptoms which had been baffling them: he had a fistula (tiny hole) in his heart. The part that confused them is that, instead of leaking into his body, the blood was being re-routed back to the heart. They will be operating on him on Monday to try to close the hole.


After we were given one of the doctor's periodic updates, I heard, in the back of my head, a twanging guitar and Tom Petty's distinctive voice singing, "The waiting is the hardest part."

When I told Shawn, he said that, when I mentioned Tom Petty, the line that went through his head was, "Into the great, wide open."

I like that.