It feels like being swept along in a surging river. I reach out for rocks, pieces of information, something I can cling to, but I\u2019m yanked from them almost immediately, submerged and spinning, swallowing water, and then for a moment my head pops up and I gasp for air, hoping to get my bearings and grab hold of a branch or something certain, but then I\u2019m pulled along again, spiralling downstream\u2026.<\/p>\n

This whole thing, this trek through the land of illness, has the definitive feel of an ancient Greek Odyssey, and I\u2019ve come to believe that I\u2019m on a hero\u2019s quest.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Quietly, at dawn, as I\u2019m wheeled down through the subterranean tunnels that connect the university hospitals, the porters serve as my guides.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Their various languages flock overhead, the mysterious syllables disperse above me and it\u2019s like they\u2019re communicating a kind of weather instead of words. Descending into this unexplored dimension we pass creatures and topography as strange and wonderful as mythology, my porter\/guides taking me on obscure missions where I must slay monsters, solve riddles and exhibit great feats of strength and determination in order to inch closer to my destiny, to my ultimate goal.<\/p>\n

And somewhere past imagination, our son Jones pours through space. Laid bare to mystery, he carries messages and lessons from beyond. He hurtles through the firmament now, our meteor, cresting planets with a fierce, unstoppable purpose– he\u2019s everywhere at once, multivalent. He\u2019s assembling in slow wonder inside my wife, while I, caught in a terrestrial and mortal struggle, battle to be present, hurrying to be there to catch him, when like some sort of impossible star descending, he falls into our life.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It feels like being swept along in a surging river.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3430,342,3441,3428,3431,607,3438,3437,399,2292,3426,3429,215,3435,3434,2759,3440,1573,167,53,3436,3439,3433,3432,2331,2326,38,3394,3427],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5308"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5314,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5308\/revisions\/5314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}