Dying/broken/forgiven.... now I begin

Born: 17-06-56....gemini.... monkey
re-born: 3-09-80
born again\found: 14-04-08
other notable dates: 10-03-68; 03-09-87; 23-03-96;
1-05-98; 31-01-02; 5-04-04

Interests: movement, stressed/transgressive embodiment, lived experience (body\space\time\relation)
expression ( word, dance, text, image, story, music, poetics)
learning, yielding......

Hopes for the blog:
offer up the wild intersectedness of lived experience and engage others in creative, expressive, perhaps irreverant, hopefully playful, and respectful encounters....
enact kindness
create moments of pause for disclosure, discovery, stillness

Sunday, November 7, 2010

.... it's in you to give

This past Friday morning I attended a blood donor clinic at my workplace. I haven't given blood in over a decade, partly because I had some mitigating health issues that kept me out of the blood pool for a number of years and partly because, well, other things kept getting in the way, like work and family and community service priorities..... all this is a nice way for me to say that I replaced it as a priority with other things that became priorities. I am a B positive donor ( please, no opportunistic comments about that..... as futile as this request no doubt is) and previous to my long blood donation sabbatical, was frequently called upon since my blood type is typically less available than other blood types. Long story short, I called in and re-registered myself and am back in the blood pool. I show up at the clinic and my lifelong borderline anemia is above the line ( whoo hoo ! ) and after all the question screens get done,  I then proceed to a comfy reclining chair.  There was a first time donor young guy on the reclining chair next to me and when the nurse unsheathed the needle before that lovely push into my  protruding vein  this young fella says, whoa, that's a really big needle! I had forgotten  how big the needle had looked to me way back  more than thirty years ago when I saw it for the first time. The nurse and I looked at this young guy and said, almost simultaneously, you hardly feel it .... but you'll feel good after!!
I did feel good after. I had also forgotten how fulfilling it is to give in this wonderfully anonymous and physically generous way. I will not be removing myself from the blood pool again. It's good to be back.

4 comments:

  1. I tried to give blood years ago, but felt too ill to continue. It came out exceptionally slowly for some reason and they gave up on me. Good for you to do it though.

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  2. I can't donate blood because of the drugs I flow through me but I let blood go freely when called for.

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  3. Very commendable; you. I do admire people that do such. A great need, out there.

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  4. madame-- i am lucky i got my dad's constitution; he was also a B positive donor and bled like a pig with no effort at all.... i am like him, i guess. thanks for the visit.
    wm-amen to that; lots of ways to bleed and give. thanks for dropping by.
    saraha-- how kind you are! i like being able to do something simple and ( relatively) unselfish. thanks for the visit.

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