Anesthesia and Me

Greetings, friends!
I hope everyone’s well and enjoying the days.

A Batman wannabe. Midwood, Brooklyn.

Lemme get straight to the point. Every three years, I get an endoscopy done. It's a necessary routine, thanks to acid reflux that has gnawed away at the lining of my esophagus. Most people would dread the procedure, but I secretly look forward to it. Why? It’s the only time I get truly restful sleep.

As soon as the anesthesiologist administers the general anesthesia, I’m transported into a rare and blissful oblivion. Over the years, I’ve even attempted to bribe the anesthesiologist into administering the stuff recreationally—not at a party or anything, just in a quiet hotel room where I could sleep without interruptions for at least an hour.

The last anesthesiologist, a devout Muslim woman, politely declined my offer. She explained that being alone in a hotel room with a strange man was inappropriate for her, religiously speaking. But even if that weren't an issue, her professional integrity wouldn’t allow it. And even if she had been tempted, the money I offered her—generous by my standards—was apparently less than what a part-time In-N-Out Burger employee makes in a day.

But this post isn’t about my anesthesiologist. It’s not even about my sleep. It’s about what happens after I wake up.

Bar Harbor, Maine. Sunrise

Post-anesthesia, my mind is eerily clear. The haze of daily distractions lifts, and I see the world with a sharpness I rarely experience otherwise. I notice things. Take last Friday, for example, after my latest endoscopy.

There he was: a wannabe Batman perched on a rooftop (see above), clutching a briefcase full of personal items. He was staging a protest against Trump’s cabinet picks—an act of bizarrely specific defiance. Would I have noticed him on any other day? Absolutely not. But post-anesthesia, the world comes into focus in strange and unexpected ways.

A porcelain doll my wife restored a while back.

Instead of waiting for someone to pick me up as planned, I walked home. Over an hour, through streets I usually ignore. It’s an odd kind of walk, half dream and half memory. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there: a flash of light that could be a long-lost friend stepping out of a doorway, or an impossibly green lawn that I remember from childhood summers. Other times, I’m walking through places I wish I could go back to—places that don’t exist anymore, except in the folds of my mind.

Woodstock, NY.

It’s an intense mishmash of visions, dreams, and wistfulness. And guilt—there’s always a little guilt lurking in these walks, for people I’ve lost touch with, for paths I didn’t take, for the way time insists on moving forward when sometimes, I just want to stand still.

Lovers on a sidewalk.

By the time I get home, the clarity fades. The sidewalk becomes just a sidewalk again, the faces blur back into anonymity, and the rooftops are empty of superheroes. But for a little while, it feels like I’ve glimpsed something extraordinary, even if I can’t hold onto it.

If I could book endoscopies just for fun—skip the procedure, keep the anesthesia, and let my esophagus and my imagination take turns healing, I’d be in heaven.

Washington, D.C. Some park near some museum.

Our relationship to the sacred: Celebrated Canadian anthropologist Wade Davis talks about his new book Beneath the Surface of Things with Broadview magazine.

Thanks to

Songletter

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’Til next time.
ak