Recovery Mode Has Its Limits

After the Fall

When I passed out last Tuesday night (an event more significant than I ever imagined) I first expressed it as a poem because the form fit my memory- scattershot. Now I’ve recovered sufficiently to be able to the string events of that night into a cohesive chronological account, though much of what happened, happened unobserved by me, and relies on what I’ve been told by others there.

Here are the facts, both experienced and hearsay: I fainted at my son-in-law-to-be Dan’s weekly comedy show, where my daughter Eliza was also performing. It took place at The Bell House, a performance venue in Brooklyn. Over the course of the day I’d eaten only a bowl of cereal and a tuna sandwich. I’d put in a long teaching day before driving the two and a half hours to Brooklyn. Upon arrival, in lieu of food, I had an IPA. I stood for over an hour in a hot, crowded space. After Eliza finished her set, I felt lightheaded, then nauseous, then my vision grayed out tunneled, then, it’s a blank. I came to on the floor with people’s concerned faces staring down at me. Someone called 911. EMTs arrived, took my vitals, hoisted and strapped me onto a gurney and into an ambulance. I was brought to Brooklyn Methodist Hospital’s emergency room, which garnered this actual Google review: “I have surmised that this is the place Lucifer created for people who have done numerous wrongs in life and have never felt an ounce of regret.” I decided in was in my best interest, survival-wise, to leave. The ultimate medical consensus: syncope, or loss of consciousness, brought on by a compilation of fatigue, stress, hunger, dehydration, and standing in the heat.

I am still recovering.

As I re-read this, I see that my initial creative inclination was right; the closest truth I could offer about last Tuesday night requires the anarchy of free-verse. The information blanks I have filled in via conventional narrative are plodding at best. Basic storytelling can only describe the parts, not the greater sum of the feelings I felt and still feel, nearly a week later.

Long story/emo poem short: I went into a happy endurance event as I have always done up to this point, limitless, only to discover that I am not. It seems I have met my wall, and it is me.