kidneys in the zeitgeist

Kidneys are in the air these days. Or, perhaps they always were and the topic just wasn't on my radar. 

There was a recent story in the New Yorker by one of my favorite authors about donation and the family drama leading up to it.

Someone sent me a link to a book just published about a woman who needed multiple transplants.

I've been told there's a current story line on Desperate Housewives about dialysis and transplants that fall apart before they happen.

There's a poster just as you hit NYC from the Holland Tunnel about the importance of donating.

There was the story about the baseball coach donating said organ to one of his players.

And the weekend before last a friend of mine directed an evening of original pieces—all written, directed and acted by women—with power as the theme that ran throughout. Much to my surprise, the next to last piece was about a family grappling with . . . yes, here it was again, kidney donation. The power in this story was the potential donor saying no and not continuing to enable her younger sister who'd spent her entire life wrapping her family around her kidney-diseased finger. 

Perhaps if I was training for my first triathalon or preparing to fly to the moon, those sorts of stories would rise to the top too, but how often, really, do people talk about kidneys?

Yet they are. So am I. 

And perhaps, in an even bigger way.

I was having coffee (or rather my daily decaf mocha) with the friend who directed that theater night and we were talking about what's up next for us. She asked if I ever considered writing fiction and thought I should think about writing a play. That's so far beyond the scope of what I imagine I could tackle, but I mentioned that a comment on this blog that they could be turned into a night of readings—a sort of Vagina Monologues about my kidney adventure. 

She said, "we could do that." "WE COULD DO THAT!" She asked me to cull together the most powerful pieces I've written so far and we'd start seeing what we could pull together. The actors from her group could participate. Perhaps it could be in their theater.

So, that's what I'll be doing today, as the snow falls outside. And should this evening of kidneys come to pass, you're all invited.