So it is "over".

Yes, friends the event that for the last two years I have scrupulously evaded, the event that evoked all kinds of fantasys of fear and passivity---the "dreaded" colonoscopy was completed today, with all those barriers broken. How? Looking back, not too sure, but somehow the need for understanding the information that the colonoscopy could give me, ultimately was more important then the self protection I gave myself previously for not taking it. Still, it was a trip, a voyage into a world that unsettled me, and now that it is over, I am relieved, and a little empty as well.

   How did I do it? Well, lots of conversations on Sunday, the "day before the day before". That kept me focused. Then on Monday, my friend Sarah gave me a lot of her time, bringing me broth that served to keep me going in the morning, and helping my put together the "potion" that one has to use starting in the afternoon. But for most of Monday, I was by myself---but in a simply pragmatic head zone. The day before, I have learned, is about reality, the reality of not eating most foods, and later the reality of allowing the go-lightly to enter you. That focus was there at all times. Occasionally I would read a chapter from Suite Francaise or listen to the Yankee game---but it all came back to how I was feeling. The prep worked on me very slowly, the complete opposite of what the instructions promised--then about 2A.M.---only five hours before I was due at the hospital, the explosions began. It was as if barrels after barrels of brown wawter were pouring out of my stomach. I was awed, amazed, overwhelmed, but I realized that this is what the go-lightly was meant to do---free my stomach so that the doctor could enter the colon and see what he had to see. More of this happened at 4A.M., I wondered if I could pull myself together for the procedure--but I pushed through, and at 6:30, Sarah was waiting to take me to Mount Sinai.

   Looking back on this morning, it reads to me like a dream. About five different people were involved in the colonoscopy prep; all were warm and conscientious, and very clear about what they were doing. I was not even aware that I was being put under. I felt great on returning to consciousness and Sarah was there to drive me back to the apartment.

  So, it was over---I sort of feel like the college student who has just finished the fifth of his final exams. That's great, I feel wonderful, but what do I focus on now? My mind is going in all different directions. Books surround my bed---is it back to Suite Francaise, escape with Agatha Christie, an Auchincloss short story (they are really good)---can't make the decision.

 There will be some follow up to the colonoscopy. The doctor found a tumor in the rectum---it has to be explored--I will have a cat-scan very soon. But in spite of that news, at this moment I feel relieved, freed, ready to return to the outside world.

 But the pandemic continues--no movies, plays, hanging out to experience---still very much on my own

in this new world. We will see what happens.