LONG NECK | Tracy Harris
“You’ve got my notebook, right?”
We are still in the pre-op room waiting for me to be wheeled into surgery.
Will rifles through his backpack and pulls out a blue plastic three-ring binder that I’ve filled with print-outs of all the emails and messages people sent over the past several weeks. I wasn’t looking for accolades when I informed people about my health crisis, or even specifically for expressions of support, but the responses I received were heartening, sort of a cross between pep talks and loving eulogies. It occurred to me that I might want to read the messages during my hospital stay, so I assembled them in a notebook. The cover has a clear plastic pocket, into which I inserted a color copy of one of the more bizarre paintings in art history, the Madonna with the Long Neck.
The painting, done mid-16th century by Italian artist Francesco Mazzola, is an iconic example of post-Renaissance Mannerism. In the painting the Madonna is seated, gazing lovingly at the infant Jesus in her arms as angels jostle for position on her right. Her blond hair coils above her head like a halo, her cheeks blush rosy pink, but the image is intentionally disturbing. Mary’s body is a good 30 percent too long for her tiny head. Her robes ripple gracefully down her elongated form, but cling to her thighs, which are frankly enormous. If she stood up, she would be a frightening behemoth. The baby Jesus is also unnaturally large and awkwardly placed, as if he is about to tumble out of his mother’s lap. But the eponymous feature of the painting is, of course, Mary’s neck. It arches like a swan’s, attaching her tiny head to her oversized frame, and it is at least twice as long as a regular neck should be.
I first saw this painting when I was training to be a museum docent. and it stuck with me. As it should. It is a prime example of Mannerist style, which favors exaggerated proportions that throw the viewer off-balance with asymmetrical elegance. My life is about to be thrown off-balance, and the focus of all the drama is my neck, where the vertebrae are crumbling. It amused me to no end to have Will print off a color copy of the famous Madonna, and to use her long-necked image to adorn my inspirational notebook.
I wonder if seeing the Virgin Mary on the cover of a notebook I brought to the hospital will endear me to the nurses, or make them assume I am religious. I am not. I have not prayed once since being diagnosed back in April, at least not in any traditional sense.
But there are forces at play in the universe that I do not pretend to understand. I have seen church altars piled high with stacks of crutches, I have read about the placebo affect and the power of positive thinking. Prayer, according to what I have read, can lead to positive medical results. Even when it’s someone else doing the praying. Even when the person in need of healing doesn’t know prayers are being offered on his or her behalf.
I made my first request by email to a young woman I know from volunteer work. She answered right away.
“I’ll pray for you tonight, Tracy, and I’ll put you on my weekly list, and make sure I know the actual date of your surgery.” I was surprised her prayer routine was so organized; I was even more surprised at how excited I was to be on someone’s prayer list.
I made my next request in person at a chemistry department party.
“Charlotte, would you pray for me?” She is the wife of one of Will’s colleagues, a church-goer and herself a PhD chemist.
“Of course, I will,” she said, taking my hand. In the car on the way home, I told Will what a lovely moment Charlotte and I shared.
“You really asked her?” Will shook his head, too supportive to let his mortification really show.
“She was happy to do it.” I assured him. “Religious people want to pray.”
In truth I don’t know all that many religious people, but I rounded up everyone I could think of. Some of their email replies are now in my notebook. I flip through the pages but am not really reading. Instead, I listen to the hum of monitors, the continuing ticking of the clock, the occasional clatter of equipment being wheeled up and down the hallway outside our door. If I concentrate, I can feel a gentle vibration around me. Healing energy? Ambient noise? God?
Meanwhile, the pace of activity quickens in my pre-op room. Nurses and orderlies come in and out, adjusting machinery, checking my blood pressure, tapping on their iPads. Finally, it’s time for the one medical ordeal I’ll be awake to experience.
“I’m here to get your IV set up,” a technician announces after I confirm, as I’ve done dozens of times this morning, my name and date of birth.
The IV goes in easily, thanks, perhaps, to those salty French fries I’d eaten the night before.
Dr. N, the lead surgeon, stops in briefly. He leaves, some attendants arrive, and then I am lying back on a gurney. Will has gathered up his backpack, the sack with my clothes, the Madonna with the Long Neck.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. You’ll do great.” I see the tears in his eyes and hear the catch in his throat. One last squeeze of the hand.
I watch the ceiling go by as the attendants wheel me to the operating room. The room is enormous. Still lying flat on the gurney, I turn my head from side to side trying to take in all the equipment, the lights, the team that is starting to assemble.
“We’re going to start the drip now.”
I turn my head to look up at the nurse who is leaning over me, adjusting a tube.
That’s the last time I’ll be able to do that, the thought runs through my mind. I smile at the nurse.
“OK.”
And the room goes black.
Tracy Harris is a writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. In recent years, Harris has been working on her bucket list, including reading War and Peace, riding the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, and learning to play Rhapsody in Blue on the Piano, medical impairments and lack of talent notwithstanding. Her essays have been published in The Common, Nowhere, Lunch Ticket and Tahima Literary Review and more.