Post by sasha on Oct 2, 2021 19:26:29 GMT -5
An emotional day...
Awoke my usual time (6 am plus or minus) & rose. Becky still asleep. Maneuvered my walker as quietly as I could to the bathroom so as not to wake her, then out to the kitchen where she, at my recommendation, had piled the supper dishes in the sink to soak overnight. I washed them, set them in the drying rack, then took my a.m. meds. From there made my way to the computer - with exaggerated slowness, concentrating on form over speed - after a year of painful limping, I need to relearn to walk normally.
She rises half an hour later, joins me during my 2nd coffee, and after preparing breakfast, asks if I feel hale enough to be left alone for an hour or so while she gets tested for Covid & picks up a few items at CVS that might make my life easier. I respond in the affirmative. After she leaves, I do my first set of PT exercises. There are two I have not been able to do unassisted - hip abduction, and raising my leg from a supine position. I try them anyway - no luck with the leg lifts - but I manage 15 reps of the other! Feeling flush I make my bed (clumsily, as there's barely enough room to maneuver the walker), and wash the breakfast dishes as well.
She returns home, and since it's a lovely fall day, suggests we go for a ride. She takes me to the place known as The Flats - a long, straight stretch of paved road along a causeway through a marsh. She stops and suggests we go for a short walk.
The sound of the breeze in the leaves and cattails, the sight of ripe cranberries peeking from the bog, the turkey buzzards soaring overhead, all bring on an overwhelming nostalgia, and I find myself struggling against tears. For too long I've been held against my will by cruel osteoarthritis from this connection to the Earth, from this simple act of worshipping in the shrine of Nature - and I stop often to feel the sunlight on my face and to listen to the whispering of the leaves and to adore the rich visual textures of wild places. I turn so she cannot see the tears leaking from my eyes. Oh, have I missed this over the past year.....
We don't go far, and soon are back in the car. Now it's my turn to pick a destination, and I direct her to my holy of holies, the Birch Hill/Otter River/Lake Dennison trinity of sacred places. The first part of the journey is a short traverse along a state highway, but once at the entrance of the rec area, and past the parking lot and picnic area, the road peters out to a dirt track leading into the untamed heart of the place. I direct her past the gated trailheads I used to wander so freely (cautioning her repeatedly that driving here as she might in San Francisco might cost her an exhaust system) - and the sight of those trails, of the waters coursing over rocky beds, the deep woods on either side of the road, and the memories of tramping for hours through those woods bring on such an overwhelming ache of loss that my eyes again overflow, and I can barely choke out the words "I'm on such an emotional rush now..." Her response quietly acknowledges this lament from my heart "You'll be back here before too long," she says softly. And I want to believe her, that I can do this, that this trauma is just another pass through the kiln, and that before too long my soul will again merge with that of the woods and hills and the great meandering course of the Millers River, and that maybe, just maybe, you can go home again....
Awoke my usual time (6 am plus or minus) & rose. Becky still asleep. Maneuvered my walker as quietly as I could to the bathroom so as not to wake her, then out to the kitchen where she, at my recommendation, had piled the supper dishes in the sink to soak overnight. I washed them, set them in the drying rack, then took my a.m. meds. From there made my way to the computer - with exaggerated slowness, concentrating on form over speed - after a year of painful limping, I need to relearn to walk normally.
She rises half an hour later, joins me during my 2nd coffee, and after preparing breakfast, asks if I feel hale enough to be left alone for an hour or so while she gets tested for Covid & picks up a few items at CVS that might make my life easier. I respond in the affirmative. After she leaves, I do my first set of PT exercises. There are two I have not been able to do unassisted - hip abduction, and raising my leg from a supine position. I try them anyway - no luck with the leg lifts - but I manage 15 reps of the other! Feeling flush I make my bed (clumsily, as there's barely enough room to maneuver the walker), and wash the breakfast dishes as well.
She returns home, and since it's a lovely fall day, suggests we go for a ride. She takes me to the place known as The Flats - a long, straight stretch of paved road along a causeway through a marsh. She stops and suggests we go for a short walk.
The sound of the breeze in the leaves and cattails, the sight of ripe cranberries peeking from the bog, the turkey buzzards soaring overhead, all bring on an overwhelming nostalgia, and I find myself struggling against tears. For too long I've been held against my will by cruel osteoarthritis from this connection to the Earth, from this simple act of worshipping in the shrine of Nature - and I stop often to feel the sunlight on my face and to listen to the whispering of the leaves and to adore the rich visual textures of wild places. I turn so she cannot see the tears leaking from my eyes. Oh, have I missed this over the past year.....
We don't go far, and soon are back in the car. Now it's my turn to pick a destination, and I direct her to my holy of holies, the Birch Hill/Otter River/Lake Dennison trinity of sacred places. The first part of the journey is a short traverse along a state highway, but once at the entrance of the rec area, and past the parking lot and picnic area, the road peters out to a dirt track leading into the untamed heart of the place. I direct her past the gated trailheads I used to wander so freely (cautioning her repeatedly that driving here as she might in San Francisco might cost her an exhaust system) - and the sight of those trails, of the waters coursing over rocky beds, the deep woods on either side of the road, and the memories of tramping for hours through those woods bring on such an overwhelming ache of loss that my eyes again overflow, and I can barely choke out the words "I'm on such an emotional rush now..." Her response quietly acknowledges this lament from my heart "You'll be back here before too long," she says softly. And I want to believe her, that I can do this, that this trauma is just another pass through the kiln, and that before too long my soul will again merge with that of the woods and hills and the great meandering course of the Millers River, and that maybe, just maybe, you can go home again....
