The Landscape Has a Beating Heart

It has been a few weeks since I have written here. Life took me elsewhere for a while—not far away exactly, but into that strange territory where the body demands attention and the ordinary rhythms of life rearrange themselves around it.

Amy and I arrived from Oaxaca on September 2, returning once again to our beloved New Mexico. Very dear friends had offered us the use of a wonderful guest house on their beautiful property, along with a car. Such generosity is humbling. We flew into Albuquerque, took the Rail Runner train north through the familiar and wonderful landscape, and were met at the station in Santa Fe.

Almost immediately, the medical journey began.

My first appointment was September 4. I had come north primarily because of a lingering complication from the prostate and bladder-stone surgery I underwent in Oaxaca in June. Although the surgery itself brought significant improvement, the abdominal incision stubbornly continued to drain. Tests in Oaxaca had revealed a small tract extending inward from the wound—though without demonstrating a direct connection to the bladder. Here in Santa Fe, more tests, consultations, urine studies and discussions followed.

There have been suspicions and possibilities, but not yet a final answer.

That uncertainty has probably been one of the most difficult parts. The mind wants a name for things. It wants a diagnosis, a map, a destination and preferably a road sign telling us how many miles remain. The body, meanwhile, follows another calendar.

I have thought often of Maya, that ancient idea of the veil of appearances—the world as we perceive and construct it, rather than necessarily as it is. During these weeks I have had to learn how easily fear can become its own reality. A sensation appears, the mind seizes upon it, and before long an entire story has been written about what it might mean. I have had to practice stepping back from that story: observing what is actually happening, attending to what needs attention, and allowing the rest to remain unknown.

Perhaps this too is part of healing—not only the closing of a wound, but learning to see through the veil a little more clearly. To live with uncertainty and trust the body to do some of its ancient work without the mind continually standing over it demanding an explanation. Yet the wound continuing its weeping for almost three months and not a single definitive answer . . . well I have had to wonder, “What is my body is up to?”

Fortunately, something encouraging has been happening while all this investigation continues: I seem to be getting better.

The wound has been contracting. The drainage has diminished. Pain is negligible. I have had no fever or redness, my energy is good, and I am urinating well. Amy, who has watched all of this closely and perhaps sometimes sees more clearly than I do, keeps telling me, “You are healing. It just needs more time.”

Perhaps she is right.

My preoccupation with the physical problem also led me to visit my psychologist while here. Months of surgery, recovery, uncertainty and watching the body closely can tilt the inner scales. I wanted help restoring some balance—not by pretending that nothing was wrong, but by learning not to give the problem dominion over every hour of the day.

There is the body, and there is the mind watching the body. And then, somewhere deeper still, there is the soul watching them both.

I have been spending each day taking time for prayer. In particular, I have been saying the Bahá’í Long Healing Prayer every day. Its words move through the different chambers of illness and healing until healing itself seems larger than simply repairing flesh. I do not know what form the answer to a prayer will take. I only know that saying it changes the atmosphere within me.

Meanwhile, Santa Fe has been Santa Fe.

We love this place. So many years of our lives are woven into northern New Mexico that returning does not quite feel like visiting. Dear friends are here, and we have been fortunate to spend time with some of them. Old conversations resume. Familiar roads bend around familiar hills. The sky performs its immense daily theater above us.

We drove north to Taos, where something wonderful is unfolding for Amy. The Millicent Rogers Museum has expressed interest in adding some of her artwork to its permanent collection. For an artist whose work rises so deeply from the indigenous traditions, stories and spirit of this region, the possibility feels especially meaningful.

While there, we also visited a dear friend who is homebound and fighting cancer. There are moments when all our smaller concerns become quiet in the presence of another person's struggle. Friendship then requires very little ceremony. One simply arrives. We sit together. We share whatever light the day has given.

And outside the window is New Mexico.

The landscape has a beating heart, and somehow its rhythm is synchronized with our own. The mountains, piñon and juniper, the enormous blue sky, the adobe colors of the earth, the scents—all of it still speaks to something deep within us. Oaxaca is our home now, but New Mexico remains in our blood.

Of course, there is also our storage unit.

Every time we return, the steel door is opened with the irrational optimism of a prospector entering a gold mine. Surely this time all those paintings, photographs, furniture and accumulated valuables will miraculously transform themselves into a fortune.

Mostly they stare back at us gently, reminding of other lifetimes lived.

We move a few things around, rediscover something we had forgotten, wonder why on earth we saved something else, close the door again, and leave our treasure patiently waiting for its next opportunity to make us rich.

We also spent time in Albuquerque with my daughter Sarah. Seeing her always seems to reaffirm something that needs no explanation—the abiding love between us, strengthened rather than diminished by the years and the distances that sometimes separate us. While there, I was also able to hand-deliver a print of one of my Vanitas paintings, *Sandia Man*, to a collector: a skeleton in a blue denim shirt and rumpled hat, seated at a table contentedly eating watermelon. It was a pleasure not simply to deliver the work, but to spend time together. I have always loved those moments when a piece of art leaves my hands and enters someone else's life.

And now our time here is almost finished.

In four days Amy and I will begin the journey south again. Oaxaca awaits us. Our house awaits us. Our animals await us. Friends await us. The familiar mountains and villages and brilliant Mexican light await us.

My medical story, however, will travel with me. There are still questions to be answered and another important study ahead. Healing does not observe national borders.

Perhaps that is one of the lessons of these strange months. I have spent much of my life traveling toward something—the next country, the next painting, the next love, the next revelation. Now the journey has become quieter and more intimate.

For the moment, I am being asked to inhabit the mystery of my own body.

To care for it without fearing it.

To seek answers without demanding them.

To remain attentive to the practical things—doctors, tests, medicines, wounds—while remembering that another kind of medicine is always available: friendship, beauty, laughter, love and prayer.

Soon the suitcases will be packed again.

Amy and I will turn south toward our Mexico home.

And the healing saga will continue.

Dreaming Awake

On June 24, I went into a hospital in Oaxaca for prostate surgery and the removal of two bladder stones. The surgery appears to have been successful. The prostate problems that had caused so much pain and discomfort have been greatly relieved. The stones (which I had no idea were rattling around inside of me) are gone, though my bladder has been through a lot.
I am grateful for improvements in my quality of life.

But sixty-seven days later, I am still in a strange place. The incision below my navel that was made to remove the stones continues to weep fluid, and there is pain. I need to change bandages three times a day. There have been various explanations, but no clear answer. Next week, in Santa Fe, I will seek a second opinion.

So I find myself in what feels like a kind of no-man’s land: no longer truly ill, but not yet well.

And strangely, this has brought me back to something I experienced while traveling around the world in 2008.

Somewhere along that journey, I came to a perception that felt profoundly true:

I am dreaming awake.

Not that the world isn’t real. It is completely real while we are here. Love is real. Pain is real. Beauty is real. Loss is real.

And yet this life is only a blink of the eye. The soul is eternal.

Everything matters.

And nothing matters.

That realization gave me a remarkable calm. I could let the dream unfold without constantly demanding that it be different. My task was simply to live fully and observe as if I was a witness. When we are dreaming, events have a life of their own. We surf the “big wave,” and it is best to enjoy every moment.

It is easy to observe the dream when it is beautiful.

It is harder when the dream hurts.

My body has become mysterious to me. Something was removed. Something was released. Yet a wound remains open.

I don’t believe my psychological history caused my prostate problems or bladder stones. But I do wonder what meaning I might find in the experience. The prostate, bladder, sexuality, release, the wound that will not close—touch places in the psyche that I have been exploring for years, especially as I write my autobiography.

Perhaps the question isn’t Why did this happen to me?

Perhaps it is:

Can I remain wide awake inside the dream when the dream has become difficult?

We will be in Santa Fe soon, for three weeks. First off, I will be seeing my urologist for a second opinion, and I have an appointment with my longtime psychologist as well. I want to approach this from every level: physical, psychological, spiritual.

Jim Morrison wrote:

“Strange days have found us

And through their strange hours

We linger alone

Bodies confused…”

Yes.

Bodies confused.

And perhaps this is simply another chapter in the dream.

The Wanderer has traveled far.

Now he has been asked to stop.

To wait.

To heal.

To remain awake.

Something Has Shifted.

I hesitate to say this too loudly, having learned during the past fifty-some days how unpredictable healing can be. But the incision below my navel is hurting less. The strange “wound weeping” that has required me to change the bandage three times a day seems finally to be diminishing. I am not healed. But I think I have turned a corner.

At almost the same moment, another long travail came to its end. I wrote the final lines of the epic life-poem that has occupied me for almost a year. It comes after the completion of my travel memoir, The Weight of Air.

Needless to say, painting, which has been my passion and given meaning to my life for many decades, bowed for a time to another creative pursuit—the making of words. I could not have planned it, but the current was so strong. And here we are.

Perhaps I have reached toward a wholeness I have yearned for deep down, a culmination of myriad forces. And being broken contributes to the deeper narrative. It is humbling. I look at the world around me in all its magnificence and see that the realm of man is broken too. The news is almost insufferable. The earth itself is warming before our eyes.

The poem began as an idea to write with a biblical voice: a third-person chronicle beginning before my birth, written in canticles, looking back across the whole territory of my life. The narrator who had been following the Wanderer through the decades, writing this blog, arrives at the man sitting at his desk in Oaxaca.

He had set out to render his life in third person, as the chroniclers of old;
Standing apart from the days to see them whole, offering them as witness.
Now he turned to face the work itself—the canticle beneath his hand;
Understanding writing was no mere record, but the journey’s final country.

—From The Canticle of the Open Horizon, last canto of Under the Brilliant Star

Yet the poem cannot end as life ends, for the hand that wrote it lives still.

My body, meanwhile, has literally been weeping through the incision meant to heal me. Three layers of dissolvable stitches have been rejected. For fifty days I have wanted my body simply to close itself and become whole again. Meanwhile spending almost a year writing a life in which the wounds, ruptures, deaths, departures, and failures cannot be removed without destroying the meaning of the whole story.

The manuscript is not finished. There are words to reconsider, proofs to read, illustrations to make, pages to design. And my body is not finished with its own work either. This morning there is still a bandage below my navel. But I have not needed pain relief as before, and there is less weeping from the wound.

Something has shifted.

The poem has reached its horizon. The body seems to be finding its way toward healing. And I am still here, curious about what waits beyond the next rise.

Chin Up

It has been forty days since my prostate and bladder surgery.

I approached the operation with more than a little dread, but there really wasn’t much choice. In the end, several significant problems were resolved, for which I am deeply grateful.

Still, the procedure itself was no small matter. There was gouging of tissue, suctioning and flushing, slicing and stitching. I remained awake throughout, thanks to an epidural that numbed the lower half of my body.

At seventy-four, recovery has been slower than I imagined.

The greatest frustration is that the incision made to remove the bladder stones has not healed as expected. By now I had hoped it would have closed in the first ten days, yet it continues to weep—a mixture of plasma and a small amount of blood. Suture reactions—where the body mounts an exaggerated response and tries to push the suture out or forms a small inflammatory nodule—occur in perhaps 1–5% of patients, depending on the type of suture material, the location of the surgery, and the person’s immune response.

Three times a day I change the bandage, and each time it is soaked. It remains tender and painful—24 hours a day.

My dear neighbor Marta, a retired nurse who has watched over me with remarkable kindness, does not believe I have an infection. I have no fever, no spreading redness, no foul odor at the wound, and no pus—only the persistent drainage and localized tenderness. Her calm confidence has been reassuring.

On Tuesday I return to the surgeon. I hope for encouraging news.

The emotional side of recovery has surprised me almost as much as the physical.

Throughout my life I have usually possessed an inner resilience—a kind of flame that continued to burn, even through illness and adversity, waiting only for the chance to blaze again. This time has been different. There have been moments when uncertainty has settled over me, and I have found myself wondering when that old vitality will return.

Healing, I am learning, does not always proceed at the same pace in every part of the body—or of the spirit.

Yet the blessings continue to outweigh the setbacks.

I have Amy beside me. I have Marta’s experienced care. I have good physicians. I have friends who write and call. I have faith.

And I have Naomi’s voice, still echoing after all these years.

“Chin up!”

I can almost hear her saying it. 

The Healing Has Begun

After ten days of considerable discomfort following surgery on both my enlarged prostate and my bladder, the catheter is finally gone and I am beginning to feel better. During the operation, the enlarged portion of my prostate was removed through the urethra, while two large bladder stones were removed through a separate incision in my abdomen. For ten days, until last Friday, a catheter extended from my bladder, through my penis, into a urine collection bag that captured astonishing amounts of water tinged with blood. Thankfully, that chapter is now behind me.

My visit with the doctor was brief but encouraging. He was pleased with my progress, though he gently scolded me for being too active. He was dismayed that I had driven Amy and me to the appointment. Amy doesn't drive in the city, so I took the wheel. I admit it wasn't easy, but I tried to minimize every unnecessary movement.

The truth is, I remain weak and live with a constant low-grade ache. Blood still appears in my urine, and the surgical areas remain tender. But something remarkable has happened: my urinary stream is back to what I remember from earlier in life.

Even more significant, a major pain that had plagued me for many months has completely disappeared.

The doctor told me that this was the most difficult operation he and his team had undertaken in their careers. During the surgery, they discovered pus within my prostate. I had long suspected there was an infection, but I never knew exactly what it was. Looking back, it may explain the chronic pain around my anus and the radiating pain into my penis—both of which have now disappeared.

Now I find myself seeing life with fresh eyes and a grateful heart. I regret that I cannot yet care for my garden as I would like, but tomorrow a laborer will come to help. For now, healing itself is my work.

I am deeply grateful for Amy, for our dear neighbors Mayolo and Marta, and for the wonderful care I received from my doctor and his staff. I could not have asked for kinder companions along this road.

Healing, I am discovering, is not only a matter of the body. It is also an act of trust. And now, at long last, the healing has begun. 

One prayer has been especially meaningful to me during these days:

"Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise."   —Baha'u'llah

The Quiet Companion

Looking back to the moment of truth in the doctor’s office here in Oaxaca, Mexico, I can only say that the hand of fate was upon me.

The verdict came after a brief examination and a sonogram of my prostate: surgery.

I had resisted that word ever since the problem was first diagnosed nearly eight years ago. The risks seemed too great. If medication could keep me going, then so be it. But time has its own plans. The sonogram revealed something new—two stones in my bladder. The pain and discomfort had become impossible to ignore. It was crunch time.

On a deeper level, I liked the doctor immediately. A urologist in his mid-thirties, he possessed the quiet confidence and reassuring manner I needed. His credentials were excellent, and his referrals glowing. I asked a few more questions, and each answer strengthened my confidence. Before I knew it, a surgery date had been set, and I wired the money from the United States.

There was something else.

As the day of surgery approached and apprehension quietly grew, I experienced something difficult to explain. It was as though a spirit drew near—not with words or visions, but with a calm assurance that settled over me. The fear did not disappear, but it no longer held the upper hand. I accepted that whatever lay ahead, I would not face it alone.

That quiet encounter confirmed what my heart was already telling me: stay grounded in Mexico and trust.

The operation lasted a little over two hours. The enlarged portion of my prostate was removed through the urethra, leaving the outer capsule intact. The two bladder stones were removed through a small incision in my abdomen.

The first night was the hardest. My bladder was continually flushed with saline, and the urine flowing through the catheter was filled with blood. There was pain, discomfort, and very little sleep.

Amy received a surprise of her own. Shortly after the surgery she was informed that she would be staying with me overnight. In Mexico, it is customary for a family member to remain with the patient around the clock. She hadn’t come prepared and endured a restless night in an uncomfortable chair. Yet her presence comforted me, and afterward I could appreciate the wisdom of the tradition. Hospitals can be lonely places. I never felt alone.

Our dear neighbors, Marta and Mayolo, have been with us every step of the journey. They are deeply embedded in the fabric of our lives, offering support and love each step of the way.

Now, four days later, I am slowly recovering. A catheter still protrudes from my body and drains into a bag that must be emptied with surprising frequency. I take my medications faithfully, drink more water than I ever imagined possible, and patiently wait for my body to heal. Blood still mixes with the urine, but each day there is a little less. In another week the catheter will be removed, and, I hope, a new chapter will begin.

I have nothing but praise for the surgical team, the nurses, and the remarkable little boutique hospital where I was treated. With only five patient rooms, it felt less like an institution and more like a place where people genuinely cared.

As I reflect on these past few days, I keep returning to that quiet presence that met me before the operation. Some may call it intuition, others grace, and still others simply the workings of the mind under stress. I only know that it gave me confidence when I needed it most. I have learned over the years to trust such moments. They have appeared before at important crossroads in my life, and once again they carried me safely across.

Healing, I am discovering, is not only a matter of the body. It is also an act of trust.

The Narrowing Passage

 Seven and a half years ago, while in Luxor, Egypt, I had a medical emergency.

The problem had been building for some time, but I had become accustomed to it and dealt with the symptoms stoically. Prior to Egypt, I had been living in Venice, Italy. My habit was to walk many miles each day, wandering through the spiderweb of narrow passages and across countless footbridges, taking street photographs. I noticed increasing pressure from my bladder and found myself making frequent stops to urinate.

Then, while in Egypt, my Arabic brothers—who are like family to me—wanted to take me out for dinner and a boat ride on the Nile on Christmas Eve. The wives had prepared a wonderful meal, and the boat was ready to cast off, but I was in crisis. I could not urinate. The pain was intense, and I had to decline the invitation and return to my hotel room.

That night was excruciating.

Early the following morning I went to my friend Haggag. He took me into the city, and thankfully we found a urologist in a rather shabby office who nevertheless was kind, competent, and immediately inserted a catheter, allowing my bladder to empty. I don´t speak Arabic, but understood my prostate was enlarged. 

Although I had airline tickets to Ethiopia, I cancelled all my travel plans and returned to the United States with medications, a catheter, and a urine bag strapped to my waist.

Facing the prospect of surgery, I instead tried a course of medication that, within days, greatly relieved my symptoms and gave me back a more or less normal life.

Now the prostate issue has become an intrusion into normal living once again.

I live with discomfort every day. I continue to have annual examinations, usually in the United States, and thankfully there has been no indication of cancer.

Recently, I sought out a highly respected urologist in Oaxaca. After performing a sonogram in his office, he said that my prostate was considerably larger than normal and that he could see stones or calcifications within it. His opinion was that surgery would likely be necessary, though he explained that the stones could complicate the usual approach.

Since then have been a battery of pre-operative tests, all of which suggest that I am healthy enough to proceed if surgery is recommended. A CT scan provided much more detail. Amy and I also met with an internist to review the results. He was bright, kind, and exceptionally helpful. He has shared his evaluation with my urologist, and tomorrow I have another appointment to discuss the findings, review my options, and learn what the next steps might be.

Appreciated throughout this process is the level of attention given.

Because I am not fluent in Spanish, every consultation requires patience. Amy helps, and we often rely on our phones for translation. Yet I never feel rushed. I appreciate not feeling as though I am being squeezed into an artificial fifteen-minute appointment slot while someone watches the clock. The doctors take whatever time is necessary to answer questions and explain what is happening. 

From what I understand so far, the usual possibility is a procedure in which instruments are passed through the penis and up the urethra to remove obstructing prostate tissue and perhaps some of the calcified material. An epidural is administered to numb the lower half of my body—so I would remain awake but feel no pain. That thought is not exactly on my list of favorite experiences, but if it helps restore my quality of life, so be it.

I may still seek a second opinion if possible. I have written to my longtime urologist in Santa Fe, though so far I have not heard back from him.

All things considered, I suspect the total cost may end up being similar whether I pursue treatment here or in the United States. Medicare would cover much of the procedure in America, but there would still be travel expenses, lodging, and various incidentals. Here in Mexico, the operation itself is estimated to cost roughly one-quarter of what the same procedure would cost in the United States.

For now, I am gathering information, asking questions, and taking one step at a time—grateful for competent medical care, grateful for Amy's support, and hopeful that somewhere ahead lies a more comfortable chapter than the one I am currently navigating.

TOP IMAGE: 

"Changing Woman" by Navajo artist, Dennis Jeffy   70 x 70 inches, oil canvas,

collection of Amy Córdova Boone

Beyond Words

Improvements come gradually to our casa here in our village outside Oaxaca, Mexico.

Solar panels on the roof have reduced our gas costs by about seventy-five percent. The tires that once formed steps from the driveway to our front door have been replaced with stone and brick steps that I built myself. A patch of dirt outside the back door has become a patio where we hang laundry. On the rooftop veranda, with its spectacular views, we installed a large shade cover. Trees and shrubs have been planted. And, of course, there is always maintenance.

Our most recent project has been the construction of a stone retaining wall along the driveway. At the entrance, where a large dirt embankment rose as high as seven feet beside the gate, there is now a wall of carefully placed stones capped with brick. It looks far better and gives the entrance a sense of permanence.

This is where Diego Vásquez enters the story.

A friend from the States recommended him. He lives in our village and had done work for her before. They had become friends.

Diego and I are about the same age. When we first met, he looked deeply into my eyes with a steady gaze. His eyes seemed to penetrate mine—as if sizing me up, but also revealing something of himself. The moment transcended words.

I speak only a little Spanish, and he speaks no English, yet we have become friends. He is always amiable, always ready with a smile.

Together with his helper, he did excellent work building the muro de piedra—the stone wall.

Years ago, I owned a masonry business in the United States, so I helped design the structure and checked on the progress often. As they worked beneath the blazing Oaxaca sun, Amy and I brought them cold drinks. There were always smiles and words of appreciation, even if we did not fully understand each other’s language.

One day the helper arrived with a gift for us—a stuffed squirrel—"ardilla." It now sits on our front porch.

Yesterday, Saturday, Diego stopped by to pick up a few tools he had left behind. Before leaving, he asked if I would be going to church in the village on Sunday.

In my broken Spanish, I replied, “No. God is in our house.”

He looked at me for a moment, smiled somewhat quizzically, and then departed with a grin.

I smiled too.