Mood: Mild with a chance of showers
Drinking: Black tea, with ice and sugar
You know how you go through life, oblivious to everything unless it means something to you? Like you never noticed how many sky blue Celicas there were in the world until you, yourself, owned a sky blue Celica. You never noticed how cute brown Boxer dogs were until you, yourself, knew a brown Boxer. You never noticed insert your own example here.
The same is true, I am discovering, of injuries. I never really noticed my fellow un-whole humans on the train or sidewalk or checkout line until I was sporting a broken wrist, a surgery scar, and a nifty fiberglass cast. Now I see the injured everywhere. The guy on the skateboard last night who had no legs. The man across the train with the crippled hand. The blind girl waiting at the bus stop. So many of us who are obviously, externally, “not right”.
I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m getting better. I have the potential and the power to be well. And I hope that getting well doesn’t mean losing this newfound sight. This more compassionate way of moving through the world. This realization of how much pain a person can carry around while the world walks on by, unaware.
My cast is long gone, and I gave away the wrist brace. I’m walking around with a naked wrist because it’s the best way to get better. I have a therapist who sees me twice a week to talk skulls (we both have collections) and massage my tired tendons and fit me with new “torture devices” that force my pinky finger to bend and my fist to clench and my wrist to leeeean just a little further each time. I’m learning new words like “pronation” and “supination” and I’ve found that 58 degrees of flexion is better, but not as good as 80.
My broken bones are healed, but my scars have memory, and they slow me down. I am so much better than I was a few weeks ago, and a few weeks from now I’ll bend even further. But it’s slow. It’s progress measured by small pressures and incremental degrees.
I can’t ride my motorcycle yet, but I can open a pickle jar. I can’t twist a doorknob, but I can button my own jeans again. I can’t hold my left hand out for change at the cash register, but I can hold Boy’s hand without wincing. Progress.
This whole unexpected interlude has been wonderfully and awfully strange. I’ve been amazed a thousand times over at the complexity of the body, at the domino effect of this injury. And though I’d never willingly choose to go through all this again, I’ve discovered things I never would have otherwise. No real surprise there–that’s how life always seems to work, yes?
And even though I feel like I lost a few months since February, even though I’m barely getting back to normal, I have high hopes and big plans of catching up.
So in the spirit of catching up, we’ve got two new cinepoems on the calendar. We’re shooting one this weekend and another the next, both in really cool new locations. And I’ve been buried in details for a photo shoot for Book #2, also this weekend. The talented and lovely Patti Monaghen is flying out from Chicago with her camera, just for me. The blank pages are filling up. Stay tuned…
-Lo, who always looks forward to the hot wax part of therapy.
LaDonnaWitmer 