The words of the "blessing for the body," superimposed over an MRI machine.

There is nothing like a surprise trip to the hospital to remind me that I am not actually in charge. Things at the hospital happen on someone else's timeframe. God's timeframe, maybe. Not mine.

I had forgotten the sounds of the MRI machine: the swish-swish like a distant ocean, the banging and buzzing and thudding. I had forgotten the taste of chewable aspirin, a jolt of childhood on my tongue.

I almost fell asleep in the MRI this morning, I was so tired from being up all night in the ER and the ambulance. I prayed lines from the morning services in my head, accompanied by its soundtrack.

Before anyone starts worrying, I'm fine. As best we can discern, this was a TIA -- a "transient ischemic attack," a clot that had some tangible impacts for a couple of hours and then apparently floated away.

What caused it? That's a bigger question. It's probably related to whatever caused my heart attack in 2022 and my two cryptogenic or idiopathic (aka inexplicable) strokes in 2006... whatever that was.

I guess I'm heading back into a period of investigative diagnostic work. Not my favorite thing, but it gives me plenty of opportunities to practice sitting with the discomfort of not-knowing something. 

And. While I was in the emergency room last night at the first hospital I went to, I was messaging a Facebook friend who is hospitalized on the other side of the country with high-grade lymphoma. 

Since yesterday, I've seen and heard people who are in far tighter straits than I. I don't enjoy not-knowing. But I know how lucky I am to be dealing only with this, rather than with something worse.

I am reluctantly admitting that I will need to scale back my seder preparations. The kitchen will not be kashered as intensively as I would prefer. I will rely on storebought chicken broth for soup.

I will need to remind myself to take things easy for a while, which is not my strong suit. If you see me exerting myself, remind me that my body seems to be saying: slow down. You move too fast.