The Event:
After my open heart surgery they kept me sedated for another 24 hours. In the process of coming slowly awake my first awareness was of an almighty thirst. Somehow I knew I could not swallow but the sister keeping on eye me realised she had to wet my lips. With a wet cotton wool she did that-and it was the most pleasant experience a person could gift me with. Because of that, I disappeared again until my next wipe.
If I say each wipe was a gift, a blessing, I am using inadequate words: words don’t, maybe cannot, say anything about the intensity and the goodness of that experience of having my parched lips soothed with water in a wet cotton. I had the same sense of goodness, rightness when I opened my eyes to see A sitting next to my bed with me and holding my hand.
The Phenomenon:
This I call submission, as we refer to it in the Schuitema thematic. What follow are some phrases which for me described my “cotton” experience of submission
• In that moment there is a singular definition of that moment: my lips are parched. Nothing else exists. I am aware of nothing as compelling as the feeling on my lips. There is in some way a knowing that wetting my lips is the only thing possible. That is all that I wanted in that moment.
• I had a full complete response to the moment. All of me was involved. All of me was aware of the before and after. I was told I even smiled around the pipe in my mouth after one wipe-I am prepared to take that under advisement.
• I acknowledged the boundary of the experience: this is how it is experientially. There are no empty spaces. I fill all
• I don’t push. I don’t shrink. I am all of me filling the space of this whole experience. There is no thought about “more” or “what else”.
• I am me.
• I dance with the moment as we are equal partners, with no immediate concern for the outcome. We are just being. We are the state of dancing.
What I only found out later was that I had to cough enough times for the surgeon to come and remove the pipe from my throat. Well eventually I qualified, and could drink water, rather than just the wipes on my lips.