Brenna Fitzgerald is a writer, editor, collage artist and creativity coach. She holds an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction and an M.A. in film and media studies. Her artwork “I Am Moments” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima.
Wesley Usher’s drawing “Healing” (Spring 2020 Intima) is a meditation on the power of pain and suffering to transform if we open to the vulnerability of the moment. Lilies grow from a spine broken by the “burdens we carry”—our own and those of others.
Two weeks into lockdown, I fractured my foot. In a fight with my partner, I lost control and slammed it into the floor over and over and over. The pain cut into my leg, my hips, my gut. I sobbed, fetal on the floor, while my partner curled his arms around me and said ‘let it out.’
In a sharp moment of pain, I became immobile. Then, the healing—the crutches, the x-rays, the MRI, the white-washed waiting rooms and examination tables. When the doctors asked me what happened, I said I landed wrong, too ashamed to admit that my anxiety exploded, that my bone was not the only part of me shattered to pieces.
But I did not land wrong. I landed right. This is what my healing taught me. I winced through weekly PT sessions. As healing took root, I messaged my doctor, worried every time I felt a new pain. Pain is part of healing, he said. Healing takes time.
© Healing by Wesley Usher Spring 2020 Intima A Journal of Narrative Medicine
Every day I woke up, sipped my tea, scrolled through my feed of photos, tossed my phone aside, flopped on the couch and stared at my orchids. Though their growth was slow, I knew in time the buds would open.
As spring progressed, I peeled off layers in the warming breeze and watched birds peck the softening ground for worms. I used to fast-forward through nature, my legs moving to the rhythm of racing thoughts. When I fractured my foot, I slowed down. I sat still. I took deep breaths. I noticed how spring unfolded in cycles of fleeting creatures: first the peepers and their pulsing songs, then the robins and the crocuses followed by tulips, orioles, hummingbirds and dragonflies. Spring came and went like a dance in many acts, a twirling swirling string of sensory details, and I a breathing presence in each moment.
Healing is in the moment. The moment is in the body—each breath, each heartbeat a reminder of how vulnerable it is to live in time and space. Moments pass as quickly as they arise. As Usher’s drawing reminds us, opening to the moment is both a letting in and a letting go. It’s a simultaneous opening to the wonder of impermanence and to the pain of loss. It’s a rediscovery of who we are as humans, an awareness that inspired my recently published collage “I Am Moments” (Fall 2020 Intima).
Watch as the orange-red colors of a sunset fade into dark sky. Feel how the heart aches.
Brenna Fitzgerald is a writer, editor, collage artist and creativity coach. She holds an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction and an M.A. in film and media studies. Fitzgerald has published written work in a variety of literary magazines including Creative Nonfiction, Stone Canoe and Ars Medica. She teaches meditation and finds inspiration in nature. Find her on Instagram @brenbrain and at brennacoaching.com. Her artwork “I Am Moments” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima
©2021 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine