The Limited View

Day 11 post-surgery, and my view is still limited to one window with brief glimpses of the rest of my life-on-hold. I shuffle from chair to bed with short detours to the bathroom or freezer. I'm still icing and elevating 24 hours a day, with the reward of no real pain, just discomfort now and then.

I can do one big thing each day and the big things are smaller than they used to be. Today I'm overscheduled because I'm running out of time for Jell-O. The show on the 31st needs me to at least make t-shirts and a display. I really want to do both, and do them well. More about those in the other blog, Gelatinaceae@blogspot.com

Might make a decision today about the knee walker. It seems that I could get along without it, but why restrict my options? I'll see what I can get out of the insurance company. Because I have received no bills, I have a vague idea that I will spend the $5000 deductible but if I'm not careful it could be a lot more. They work so weirdly with their UCRs and denials. Knee walkers are hot properties and I want to buy one for the probable occurrence of the removal of the big screw Dr. McCourt put in my heel. Then I could lend it out to the probable several people in my big network who will suffer my same injury as we age. They're promoted because you get better exercise of your compromised limb and for me that is a big concern as I need to get back on my bike as soon as possible. June is so far away as a date to be mended...whatever I can do to be ready will have untold benefits.


So I'll get on the phone but I hope that doesn't become my one thing today. I'm so hot on my narrative nonfiction track that my house book is writing itself in my mind and it would be so nice to get some of that down in readable words before it fades. The book Story Craft is filling in the gaps in my education that have developed from not ever getting any formal training in writing. It's mostly a disadvantage in my confidence level since I do much of what he is teaching instinctively from reading a lot and from the feedback of my writing groups over the years, but working through the book and taking notes on one page while outlining my book on the facing page is thrilling. That's what I want to be doing nonstop. Unfortunately it's just one of the several projects I'm doing simultaneously. But I have time.

I'm pressuring myself to get out in the shop while pressuring myself to stay out of it. My regular inventory building came to a screeching halt and I just hope I have the hats I need to get some retail in if the weather is good and I can work out the logistics of getting to Market. It's going to be painful to miss Opening Day and April and May markets but it would be literally painful to try to go down there for little monetary reward. I doubt I can pay anyone to sell for me, but most of the people who would do it for free will be down there trying to sell their own stuff. I haven't worked on the possibilities of enlisting helpers. That's a really big thing and I want to get some other things out of the way first so I can be realistic and practical about it. No sense trying to get people lined up if I'm not committed. My self-sacrificing ways regarding rainy Markets are not going to be easy to justify this season. It has to be worth it for me and whomever is helping me, and that is something I just can not guarantee. I'm trying on the idea of staying home on Saturdays but it's painful to imagine it. I know exactly how it feels, actually, having done it for years while I was building the house. If I go down to the Park Blocks without my wares, I feel so stupid, with all that wasted potential. And if I go with them, sometimes I feel just as stupid.

It makes a little more sense to enlist those folks in helping me print. The shop is tight but with one person moving the shirts around I think I'll be able to pull the squeegee. That is more like guaranteed income: even if I am not as efficient, I will still get that per-shirt pay. And that can be done during the week so my Market people can help.

Domestically I'm doing well, and even did some dishes yesterday. I'm going to try the vacuum today, just on the high spots. The spiderwebs and dust will wait. There are no rugs to shake anymore, since my caretakers made me eliminate all the throw rugs, which was of course necessary and wise. Every day I take on a bit more of my own care, which buys me a little more of my treasured solitude and work time.

I love being a hermit but this has forced me to modify, and I am enjoying the benefits of more human company. I love my people. I have guiltily for some time heard myself valuing my work over my people and my work really is essential to me, and important in my small world, but in the big scheme of life I have been a slacker in my friendships and I can't let myself be that way. The generosity and caring of my friends and neighbors is deep and wide and inspires me to be a lot better person to match it. I couldn't even hope to catch up with some of them, who have been practicing compassion and generosity much more diligently than I. But each day is a new opportunity for that.

The healing sessions I've had have blown my mind completely and I will grow spiritually in some unexpected but long-simmering ways. I want to use my skills and talents such as writing and printing to advance humans in my sphere in whatever ways I can. That might just be chronicling the work of people like Jan or Beth or Pamela by writing about them so that their work can be recognized and appreciated, or maybe just learning the language of appreciation so that other people can feel the depth too. For a start I will be less shy about articulating it when I get the opportunity.

I see people's eyes glaze over when I mention past lives or high soul committees but I don't know why their discomfort ought to be important to me. In a way I place them above me, and let my fear of judgement limit me and my own healing progress. Each time I have told the story of my three-hour euphoric episode the other day, I've found the listener to be much more accepting than I imagined they would be. I haven't had anyone dismiss it yet. So what if they do? Ive spent years dismissing it on the one hand while exploring it with the other, and that seems like some wasted time at this point. I often say "Your cynicism will not protect you."

Reserving your enthusiasm for the woo-woo and trying to seem reasonable and non-religious in the face of fascinating and impressive spiritual results has just hobbled me in my own progress toward enlightened advancement. I'm holding up the evolution of the spirit. If I could fully embrace it I might get out of this cast and into print and accomplishment so much more quickly. I have nothing to lose if a few people dismiss me.

Being raised Catholic and then rejecting it so thoroughly because of the cruelty that comes with it have caused me to write off the power of prayer and anything that can be interpreted as religious belief, but I have to admit that I never lost the attraction to and belief in magic. Nature is magical and I fully embrace nature. Maybe as a first step I can allow all religious and spiritual belief to be acceptable. I certainly don't have to accept the actions of those practitioners who hide their base impulses behind the facade of it while perverting it for their own gain. Let those be the ones I dismiss and ignore. Let me focus on all those who are doing good in the world, and give credit for what sustains them. Whatever they name it, it is the same power that is greater than our own small selves, the same ability to see the bigger picture, the greater good.

Let me get past the naming and into the essence, fully and in great beauty and grace. Let me pray. So what if that makes me irrational. Last time I looked I was full of the irrational and that was part of what made me alive and glowing. Let me expand my awareness without limits. Let me expand my acceptance of all that glows and sparkles. Last night I heard myself repeating the nightly prayers of my youth, the ones I said so fervently on my knees every night. What a lovely habit, really: listing the ones you love as you go to rest. "God bless Mommy, and Daddy, and Karen and Laura and Paula and John and Big Ears and Susie Fries and..." now I would add dozens of others and expansions of those who deserve regular blessings. I can skip all the parts where I berate myself for my many "sins" and "trespasses" and just gently encourage myself to move forward in that grace that may be granted, usually whether it is earned or just bestowed.

And let me capture the passion that used to consume me so thoroughly this time of year and dive deep into my Jell-O Art. I used to turn everything else, and everyone, aside for weeks in advance of the show and fully immerse in the intensity and creativity of that focus. I rode on that all year long in 2011, and here we are so close to the show we can taste it, and I'm resisting. The house book will still be here, but the Jell-O Show will be over in the blink of an eye. Let me make that my passion for the next two weeks.

Forgive me if I set you aside temporarily while I do this essential thing. Jell-O is my most important metaphor, my vehicle, my most pure self-expression. It's way more important than the little things I put in the way of it to make myself feel less scared. Passion and intensity are scary. The fear of failure always lurks and slows and stops us. One of the greatest aspects of the Jell-O Art is that there is no failure. There is no evaluation. It is pure art and pure, brilliant, sensual life.

Okay, don't bother me too much today. I'm making Jell-O. I love you though. Make sure to plan for the evening of March 31 from 5-8. You have nothing more important to do, take my word for it. And while you're waiting, make some Jell-O art. You won't be sorry.

The not-fictional Matrix

Two words: Matrix Energetics. All of my years of well-seasoned cynicism could not protect me from the unbounded joy and healing I have experienced.

Thank you.

May all beings be well.

The Next Step

Painkillers make me type badly (sort of a dsylexia) and repeat myself repeatedly. Clearly I need to keep typing, however badly.

The obvious follow-up to yesterday is that soon after congratulating myself for doing everything right the little bell rang *everything?* I've gotten good at the after-the-fact, but what about the prevention? I am sure it is possible to not only diminish the effects but to rid myself of them. They're only brain patterns and pathways, which we know we can change. [Side note: doctors told my Mom she has a remarkably "tight brain," meaning for an 86-year old lady she does not have a shriveled, dried out thinking apparatus. Crosswords, music, walking, going to old-people university, etc. Go Mom!]

When I was actively co-counseling, I had a network for processing distress both before and after the occurrences, and the opportunity to go right back to the beginning and work at the roots. I more-or-less squandered that when my group disbanded and I didn't maintain the relationships. I watched another in the group prepare for her surgery, setting up schedules and insisting that she have access to her people even in the operating room. I'm not as diligent as she is, but she took care of her anticipated and real needs and I admired that. That's the thing I need to keep in place, and maintain. It takes the pressure off friendships.

I'm an avoider, I can admit that. I rarely fix things that aren't broken, and I have my excuses all lined up. I'm not going to trash myself for it, but why did it not occur to me that I might be feeling some distress? Why don't I work there: Try to take better care of myself. Better still, actually start doing it. On the list.

I'm so grateful that I did so much cleaning and yardwork this winter. My houses are in pretty good shape. I'll miss some of the spring gardening opportunities but that's okay for a year. If I take the time to heal well I can be back in time to harvest strawberries and plant tomatoes. I will definitely make more tomato juice this summer. That stuff is marvelous and I don't even know Aunt Lud's secrets yet.

My lovely writing group is coming today and I'm going to ask them to organize my reading pile zone so I'll have a little work space. I'm going to design the Jell-O shirts first, and see if I can print them the last week of March. I'll sit there at the table in the back room at Maude Kerns with my foot on a pillow of Jell-O and snag all the pity sales. Maybe the book will come out in time and I can hawk that too. You know what they say about crisis and opportunity.

Thank you, nine times nine times nine.

Processing Trauma

From my chair I'm reaching out to try to organize everything in my reach, and I came across some notes I made when reading the books Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine and The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild.

Goals of Trauma Therapy:

1. Unite implicit and explicit memories into a comprehensive narrative of the events and aftermath of the traumatic incident. This includes making sense of body sensations and behaviors within that context.

2. Eliminate symptoms of ANS hyperarousal in connection with those memories.

3. To relegate the traumatic event to the past: "It is over. That was a long time ago. I survived."

The key to moving through trauma: uncouple the fear from the immobility (frozen terror) [discharge it in RC terms]; immobility ends and fight/flight energy returns. Use the energy as escape and anger; don't go into helplessness.

Re-enactment serves to find new solutions. The key to transforming is to move slowly in the direction of flexibility and spontaneity.

I'm a survivor of childhood and young-adulthood trauma which wasn't processed and resulted in somewhat of a messy life as I took decades to find the tools to treat myself. There are so many more resources now, thank goodness. Finding a creative life and an all-inclusive spirituality in the hippie culture allowed me to explore what did and didn't work. Having a baby forced the issues and I got years of therapy and the framework of PTSD to make sense of the ways my body had learned to protect me. My son says he was never traumatized as a child (except maybe that time he fell out of the tree, which fortunately happened when a first responder was standing there with me and took charge.) Anyway creating safety was the driving force of my child-rearing years and that persists. I tend to keep myself safe. Except for once in awhile when I forget I am on a roof, etc.

People forget that the fight/flight impulse also includes a period of freezing. This provides prey like rabbits the response of surrender and going helpless, which sometimes serves to disarm their predator and make a space for them to escape. As a culture we have forgotten this because we don't respect helplessness, but it is sometimes the key to survival and children choose it instinctively since their power is small and their anger not very effective. It shows in humans as a shut-down, emotionally if not physically, and in me I just appear confident and in control, masking my fear and usually even forgetting myself that I am likely to have a trauma reaction to certain stimuli. Inside I freeze and it can take weeks to thaw, and apparently I thawed out in the corridor between the surgery and post-op. I started flailing and jabbering.

I have rarely hurt myself, but the occasions disturb me on so many levels I have studied them deeply. Often I go for long periods of being triggered without knowing I am in it; not so much these days, but still I didn't prepare myself emotionally for the surgery. I just concentrated on the physical details of my environment. I called silently for Lola Broomberg in post-op. She's not even my therapist, but I've wanted to go to her for some time. She shares an office with the therapist that led me through most of this in the past, and Lola offered her help on FB which is one reason I was thinking of her. That clued me in to the fact that my extreme distress was not physical but emotional. Unfortunately doctors and nurses are trained to treat the physical with physical means. I should have gotten the counselling before the surgery, but I "forgot."

Anyway, the hyperawareness of me inhabiting all of the corners of a room twice the size of my house was a clue to dissociation, though I have never sensed myself out of my body in a conventional sense. I need more skills to ground into my body. I just couldn't relax it. It was rigid with tension. A valium or something would have helped, or just someone to tell me what they were observing. The nurse did an excellent job but had other things to do, the usual physical things they are trained to do.

But as it turns out I am a brilliant, sensitive, educated and insightful woman, and I did a perfect job in processing my trauma despite my lack of preparation. I said and did all the right things. I'm very proud of myself. I'm very grateful to co-counselling and my former co-counsellors who helped me learn the language of distress and the ways of discharging it, subtle things like having to pee a lot even when you're a little dehydrated, laughing and joking when you are supposed to be serious, and gesturing and using your body to get rid of it.

In Re-evaluation counselling, or co-counselling, there is big encouragement to get close physically, to hold hands, cover up and get warm, feel safe however you need to do that. The warm blankets got piled on me. Nancy held my hands and got close to me. I got to cry and talk and tell the details over and over.

I talked a lot about Jell-O art to the nurses and doctors, to everyone, because that to me is the greatest physical representation of the deep joy and restoration of the soul through beauty and art, that I have found. It is vital to me and I was in a place where only what was vital was operating. Deep trauma and deep joy. Beauty and grief. Brilliant color and dark unconsciousness. The divine tension. That is where we dwell.

Beginning to Feel Normal

I'm gradually setting my new normal. It's inconvenient to have your foot in the air, but the elevation and ice and managing the pain are key to maintaining an attitude that I can bear this while I have to. Everything is a chore so I'm not real tempted to do too much.

I have had the most wonderful outpouring of support. It's very humbling. I will know better how to respond in the future to other people's hardships. We mostly try to be stoic and private because so many have it so much worse, but sometimes it is our turn to help and then to be helped. I'm experiencing full gratitude for all the little things and big things friends and neighbors are doing.

Surgery is traumatic, and everyone reacts differently. I tend to pretend things will be fine and then they aren't, but it seems better than dissolving into fear and terror. Most of my trouble with the surgery was emotional, but actually I am getting pretty good at handling that after 62 years of life. I was far too chatty and almost manic at first but a friend reminded me that the prescription for trauma is repeating the story over and over until it gets less powerful, and I instinctively did that instead of the way I used to keep everything secret. I scared some people with my loosened boundaries. As a writer I have always tended to overshare and that just makes people uncomfortable who don't like that much information about weaknesses and emotions.

So I guess I helped some people tighten up their own boundaries in regard to me but except for being sorry, those are not my problems. They do what they have to do. There's a difference between creating drama and articulating experience. I had the need to name and identify all of my insights and realizations, and I will have to continue to do that but I'll just choose whom I share things with and remember to let other people do what is best for them. It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to. Actually I don't really want to whine. Healing is what it is in front of me right now and I have the image of just surfing the material instead of drowning in it.

I had a lot of beach and ocean images in my process. During surgery I had a lucid dream of being on a beach. In post-op I was trying to take care of everyone in the giant room and had an extremely hard time taking care of me. I later remembered a psychic reading I had decades ago where Olga Maria told me I was a healer in the South Seas and I'm going to find that and look it over, because even though my skeptical self dismisses that stuff, the associations give me insight. There could have been suggestions in my subconscious because of the year anniversary of not only the tsunami but our more personal Market family loss.

General anesthesia is powerful and your body is taken to the edge of what it perceives as death. Having a tube down your throat for three hours, being on your stomach with people opening up your foot and moving your bones around, well, that sends terrifying messages through your nervous system. It wasn't an easy experience for my body and I hardly cried or got scared at all in the two weeks between the accident and the surgery. I wouldn't let myself. I was in control and I knew I could depend on myself to get through it.

Probably being helpless coming out of the dream into the reality was similar to being caught in a personal tsunami. My rational mind knows it is just a foot and I will be fine after some weeks of inconvenience. My psyche struggles. My body is wounded. Healing has to involve all of it.

I love that I'm more insistent on writing my own story about it, moving through it the way I need to. I've learned a lot about that over the years and in post-op I just went with talking out loud to myself and every other wacky way I acted. I tried hard not to comfort the comfortable and concentrate on my needs. Eventually I was able to do that piece by piece but I was still worrying about the convenience of the nurses and on down the line. Part of that is just the way women are taught to take care of others. I am definitely a woman.

I'm settling into putting my foot first and allowing myself to rely on help. People are so very kind and reliable. I feel like whatever help I ask for will be given, at least in some form. I have even received a lot of help I didn't know I needed.

This is where I will put some of my learning and processing and if you don't want to read it, feel free to not read it. I want to get back to my house research and other projects but I can only do a little each day and the nights are long and boring. It seems like there will be plenty of time for all of it as I improve. Just go make some Jell-O while you wait. Don't eat it...play with it. It's pretty and smells good and it will make you laugh.

Thanks again to everyone. Really. Painkillers make me repeat myself and then repeat myself again but I am just going to keep saying thank you in pretty much every conversation. I've always been lucky, and I'm still lucky to be in this wonderful strong body and mind. Everything will just get better and better, with a few low spots in there for contrast. Eventually this will all be a memory and a good story.

Home improvement

I don't look very alert or happy. Maybe resigned. Colleen wanted to record this DIY arrangement that I dreamed up. Willy tied it together for me and it worked okay but the La-Z-Boy chair lent by Tom and Pamela works much much better and is way more comfortable. I don't have a picture but take it from me, I am so much more alert and happy now.

Probably still look pitiful. I'm gradually coming out of denial over this pickle I am in. I looked at pictures on the internet of people who don't follow the doctor's instructions and I will not be one of those people. It seems stoic and noble to push oneself to resume working asap but in this case it would be foolish if I start putting weight on the bones before they are fully healed. I'm sure I will be making enough stupid mistakes to convince myself to avoid making any informed ones. No putting the foot on the ground. Until like June.

People are helping me and I truly appreciate each and every one. I am getting lessons in gratitude and openness and positive framing. Nancy caught several of my self-deprecating statements and that is a habit I have to lose. I can't limit myself with that stuff right now. I have to be the best I can be.

I am scheming on ways I can work with assistance, though, and I think I will be able to meet commitments in April (most of them anyway) by asking people to give me an hour or two helping me print and manage the orders and maybe I can even manage the Market with some type of booth-sharing arrangement. It's ironic that I was just beginning to work on ideas for making things easier for aging vendors. The Market is actually stellar at making things easier for those who are temporarily or permanently disabled. They have wheelchairs and other types of chairs for people to use at HM and in the office. Members can always appeal to the Board for special arrangements for whatever they need. The Kareng Fund gives grants and also is putting together a resource packet for those who need to access already existing resources like Senior and Disabled Services, etc. I need that kind of a packet, actually. Maybe in the next few weeks while I try to access services I will be able to help put that together as I go.

I don't want to miss any meetings but I will. I always trust that good decisions will be made in my absence as they have for years while I was not doing Saturdays or involving myself other than selling at HM. I know that I am just a small piece of the big group that makes things happen, and I know it will all happen without me just fine. That's a little hard on my ego but I get a laugh out of that. I admit the hardest part is just feeling out of the loop. Everybody likes to feel important.

Apparently the issues I need to work the most on are judgment (of myself and others) and worthiness...I need to allow myself to feel worthy of other people's efforts. I don't want to be any trouble to anyone. Even my Mom lectured me on that; let people help me and show their love. It is mean to deny them that. It's selfish to isolate and turn people away.

So: immediate needs? None really. I could probably use some advice about ways to protect myself regarding the surgery...emotionally and physically. It's so invasive and traumatic and the painkillers have a masking effect on that. The bit of counselling I got from Jan helped a lot, just to cry and let go of my guilt and shame around it. I'm going to contact River about tinctures of whatever. I'm kind of uninformed about that stuff. With the lap desk I can do a lot more without getting up but I see the heat from my laptop is making the covering come loose. It looks like wood but is contact paper I guess. Might just be a temporary solution. Maybe I'm not supposed to work. I could entertain that notion.

I have lots of food and things I can throw in the microwave but if someone wanted to donate me some Genesis juice, I'd drink it. I'm having a hard time asking people to buy me things; it's just not my style. I like to pay my own way, which is impossible. I was already broke and am going to mount up some impressive debt thanks to my $5000 deductible. I'm dreaming of a $10,000 advance on my book about the house. Maybe we can all envision that.

I still want to pull my weight. I still want to be dependable and productive and share my creativity and joy. I think that will greatly help keep me from getting despondent or depressed. I simply have too much to do to indulge in that.

So I'm working on not yet saying I can't until I think of ways I might be able to. Right now I have to stay out of the shop completely lest I be tempted to do one thing or another. It's in pretty good shape for work when I do get out there. I'm going to continue to refuse to get out there for two solid weeks post-surgery, which means March 22. Then, if I can, I may be able to do a couple of things with help. I'll make a priority list.

Being adaptable is an art. I'm an artist. I will adapt. I have everything I need to do it well.

Oh, the Irony

This month is when the book is supposed to come out containing my nonfiction publishing debut: an essay in which I tell of the joy and tenuousness of my lifestyle as cyclist-Market-Jell-O artist. There's a paragraph in there where I say how fragile my structure really is; if I fall, or slip a disk....

So as a true nonfiction writer I guess I was bound to test that out; I swear I had no intention and I renounce any unintentional vows to that end. Anyway, on Friday I fell and broke my foot.

I cracked the calcaneus bone, which is the main heel bone. It's not a good thing to break. I don't know yet if it will require surgery and a plate and screws but I do know it will require 12 weeks of elevation and rest. And no, that doesn't mean I get to be high, it means I am supposed to keep my foot above my heart level. And my heart is pretty full.

I have had lots of help, thank goodness. Willy came yesterday to take me to the doctor and helped me build a kind of lounge out of my chairs, all tied together and draped with pillows. I'm propped up here surrounded by books and dvds and Colleen brought over some divine non-inflammatory cookies and a long-handled grabber and I just lie here and do what I can to keep myself grounded and positive. It's my right foot so I can't even attempt to drive and I am pretty darn dependent. Not my accustomed style.

I am so grateful that I know so many loving and generous people. I am so sorry for all the times I didn't respond adequately to their distresses, convincing myself they would probably rather be left alone. Now I know a bit more about how much people really do need each other.

I'm still figuring it all out, not wanting to let go of anything. Market starts April 7th...not gonna be there. The Jell-O Show is March 31...all up in the air. No readings of my essay will be happening for me any time soon, if the book comes out near schedule. All the little jobs I have cobbled together, all my small clients and a couple of big ones: on hold. I want to find a way to do it all still. Time will tell just how naive I can get.

I'm experiencing pain and painkillers. I can use my laptop, but will my writing abilities be compromised? Is there a sweet spot in the medication cycle where I will be lyrical and not stupid? They make me chatty, so I avoid Facebook so I don't spill out. I can still research the house stuff somewhat. I can't go to the graveyards as planned, not yet anyway. I guess I can work with what I have, which is a lot. At least I will have plenty of time and not a lot of distractions.

I might be able to make the most of this, but it's not optimal. I was already broke with expensive yet inadequate insurance. I'll be all withered and have to rebuild all of my muscles and I hope all this sitting doesn't make my back issues flare up. I hope I don't burn all my helpers out with my diffidence and inability to use proper social skills to ask gracefully and gratefully. Talk about aging in place...I got the in place thing right anyway. And I will age. This can be a disabling injury, said the urgent care doctor. Not for me, I said to myself. Not for me.

But I'll certainly have more grasp of the emotional content of the aging process, which at almost-62 I was rather blithely ignoring. My mother-in-law Hope spent a decade or more not walking at the end. I had pain and immobility before, with my back, but that surgery was possibly less complicated than this. I was more scared then, and less realistic. I took so much for granted.

We'll see how it all goes. Quite possibly six months from now I will have left it all behind me and be off on some new quest or other. I'm just in the beginning of this little trip through the wilds. I'll be okay; just different. Most injuries are permanent in some way or other, printed on our bodies and our psyches.

It was just a moment of inattention, looking up when I should have looked down. There are countless ways it could have been worse: I stepped off a roof, but onto another roof, and didn't fall to the ground. My guardian angels tried to help me, but I was dreaming, thinking that what was important was that one apple limb that was just out of the reach of my pole pruner. I wanted to be thorough and get all of the branches that were growing upward to the sun, trying to make them all grow downward so I could pick the apples. What arrogance. Obviously the important limb was the one I was moving, the one that was my foundation, the one I allowed to step out into the thinnest of air. I took my body and balance for granted, just for awhile.

You just can't do that. Being present is a much more intense thing than I thought. Now as I occupy the same chair for the foreseeable future, I will be exploring more finite space. I'll still be doing and learning. I just managed to limit my choices by some huge percentage and wipe pretty much everything off my calendar for a bit. I'll be here, and I'll get back. It just might involve a bit more effort than I thought.

My thanks to my mail carrier, Jeff, who happened by when I was figuring out how to get off the roof. It was so comforting (I have a crush on him, too, so it was embarrassing as hell. He sees a lot though. Told me yesterday he was chased by a dog in pajamas. Yes, the dog.) My eternal and overwhelming gratitude to my friend Pamela, who came over and took me to Urgent Care and looked at the films with the doctors and listened to what they said, and got me all fixed up and even had the presence of mind to order me some Chinese which I ate for six meals. It was fantastic each time. She washed my dishes and moved my clutter and listened to my irrational dribbling as I went through the initial stages of adjustment. Everyone responded and everyone helped.

All of my friends and neighbors are just wonderful people and I am very, very lucky. And the Market network is a wonderfully dependable network.

I had originally titled the essay "Jiggety Jig" for the part about going to Market (no fat pigs, but anyway I liked it). The publisher needed it changed and now I think it is Stay Calm, Nothing is Under Control. That pretty much says it all.