09/28/2006: "My Heart"

music: Eve 6, Soup Dragons, Deathcab for Cutie, Plain White T's
mood: Lovely.

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." – Antoine de Saint- Exupery

The heart is a hollow, muscular organ. I find it amusing that we call organs...well...organs. The heart is an organ, indeed it makes a certain undeniable music, not unlike...and organ. The heart does sing, it is an instrument. At least mine does. It has four chambers. I like too that we refer to them as chambers. Little rooms. Rooms for secrets, and silence, rooms for echos, and solitude, rooms that make up a home for the ones you love. The hearts of fish only have two chambers. Does this mean the love less or they their love is smaller? Frogs have 3 chambers. Does this mean their love is odd?

For the first 21 days of your life, you live without a heart, or rather your mothers heart beats for you while yours grows. I imagine one of the most surreal experiences, one of the most difficult and beautiful things to describe would be hearing the heart of your child beat inside you for the first time. Though millions of women experience it, I don't imagine you can accurately describe exactly WHAT that is like. I think that it is fascinating to ponder the concept that something such as a heart, that is so vital to one's existance, is absent for three weeks at the beginning of it. The heart is central, literally (it lies more center than it does to the left as people suppose). The heart is pivital. And yet, it is independent.

The heart does not require a signal from the brain to beat. The electrical field of the heart is approximately 50 times stronger than the brain and the magnetic field of the heart is 5,000 times stronger than the magnetic field of the brain. This makes sense to me in many ways. this makes sense becuase your heart often times is described as having no logic, but you can listen to it a lot easier, feel it working a lot more clearly than you can your brain I think. It is giving off more electricity and more magnetism than your brain. It is like your brains child. It's impulsive. It's emotional. Delicate. Sensitive. And without knowing its limits, it is seemingly invincible. No wonder it is connected with love. And conversely, with heartbreak.

The electrical field itself of the heart can be measured 8 feet away from your body and when two bodies communicate the heart rhythms of one individual can be measured in the other. This explains a lot. I think my heart is an over acheiver. I think 8 feet is a joke. I have no doubt, the power for a transatlantic heart meld. No doubt. What-so-ever. He can feel the effects miles and miles from me. And I can feel his.

Your heart will beat, should all go well, approximately 100,000 a day, about 35 million times a year and 2 1/2 billion times in your average (in length not achievement) lifetime. Unless you are a hummingbird in which case it will beat 1200 times a minute. I wonder if they fall in love faster? Or if you are an earthworm in whcih case, I am sorry to inform you, you have no heart. But you do have something else that serves the same practical purpose, and I wager are just as capable of love as well.

The Blood that your heart pumps travels 12,000 miles a day. About the distance from San Jose, CA to Plymouth, England and back again, with distance to and from the airport taken into account. Or about the distance to Windhoek, Namibia from the Bay Area.

If you hold out both your hands and make fists, you would be simulating the aproximate size of your heart. But with every heartbreak your heart stretches as it heals, and it is able to hold more the next time your let love in. And with love. REAL love. Unconditional, reciprocated, amazing love, the capacity of love in your heart is indeed, infinite. All laws of science, probability and imagination are broken in the presence of true love.

There are over 2000 heart transplants every year in the United states alone. A heart can survive over 24 hours after the brain is dead of it's attatched human. I'm not sure how long it can survive seperated from it's soulmate. I wager dozens if not millions of lifetimes would be a safe estimate. Even in my weakest, my heart's strength inspires and surprises me. And within every beat of my heart, a lifetime passes.

I love you. Hurry up.