Writing Invitation: Choose a body part. Choose an inorganic object. Put them together in a piece of writing. You have 10 minutes. Go!

Here is my response (first draft, unedited): Body Part, Kidney. Inorganic Object, Earring.

The doctor alerted me to the problem- a kidney with an earring stuck in it. A big gold hoop of an earring, six inches in diameter, like the kind they wore in the 70’s when hair was straight and flow-y and the hoop earrings provided contrast– a version of hip before hip was hipster.

Why? How? I asked him as he pointed to the x-ray on the white light screen.

“Science is sometimes more art than we know.”

“It’s an art object.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “notice the aesthetics of the kidney– the small mass, about the size of a child’s closed fist. And then this hoop- a hoop of protection.”

“Why hasn’t my body rejected it?”

He shrugged.

I guess the body always remembers. I guess the body knows what it needs. But an inorganic object? An object of metal doesn’t belong in my bio-system.

***

It seems my body is adapting to this hoop, this gold– I’m assuming it’s 14 karat, and that somehow my kidney is filtering the toxins, the pain in my life, and finding the raw materials for some kind of complicated alchemy.

I’ve been struggling lately. The kid has me worried. My son hasn’t called me for a month. Then, when we do connect he tells me his depressed, he’s losing days to worry. I can see the downward spiral about to happen. I say, you need help. Come home. But at the same time I want him to figure it out, write a story of overcoming obstacles, creating the change he wants to see in his life.

***

I noticed some pain after the last phone call– pain in my low back, right. A feeling of something poking out. A sharp end. I’ve been wandering, walking the ridges of the city, looking down. What might my life be like if I don’t long for things, like a son who is, like, really okay?

What if I believed it were already true?