Walking

This is personal, short-ish, not short enough.

Strunk and White. Omit needless words. I’m still working on that.

This month, probably a little later, reminds me a little of the winter fallow season when things restore. And then spring, and life, comes.

I have been recovering from a broken patella (and a broken elbow and a broken little spine bone). All in 2024. (John Oliver can you blow up my 2024, please.)

I had the best medical care. But I’m happy to be out of hospital and in my own bed and my own kitchen, my own desk getting straight. Patience. It all gets better.

Just give it time. Be patient. Get strength back. Be careful. No more falls. Make progress.

(My baby elliptical came today.) (It needs assembly…getting help with that.)

(Do chair yoga. I used to scoff, but not scoffing now. Maybe I’ll get back on mat but when doctor clears me. Child pose hard on the knee. Tree pose, probably not, dizzies and balance. Down dog, probably not, dizzies and balance.) But I’m keeping the mat because you never know.

(Scale came last week. I’m still skinny BMI.)

(Blood pressure monitor powered on but getting that cuff on is a bear. I have low blood pressure anyway but readings don’t look right. Way too low. Figure out that cuff.)

I broke my knee because I had been out of the hospital for only two hours when in my impatience to unpack my luggage I left the walker in the kitchen and fetched the carry on with my laptop from the living room. Then fell. Right on my knee. Idea. Don’t fall on the knee. It really hurts and probably ambulance ride and probably surgery and probably hospital time which no one wants.

Elbow, tried crossing a parking lot without the walker and the dizzies hit. The feeling when you know you’re going to fall and you can’t stop it. That elbow was smushed to pieces and may never be back to original but mobility is increasing. I can write by hand and type. Got my earrings in myself. Small win.

But yay me. This week I walked on my own two feet, not long, getting longer, but standing up and walking on my own. Walker where I could catch it if needed. No more falling. It could be worse. Hip, skull. No more falling.

It’s been brutally cold this week, here and everywhere. I’m fine, heat on, power on, more than I can eat (kitten Quinn likes the prosciutto), even aloe and bergamot candles on my night table. And with laptop and new phone (love it) right here, going through stacks of papers from more than a year being mostly away in hospitals.

How fortunate it is that I’m home and safe. Putting things back in order. With adorable kitten Quinn who does not sleep at 3:00 a.m. Cats. Eventually he’ll stop waking me, then running like he’s insane, middle of the night. Cats. I always have something I can do until he wears himself out and then I can sleep too, again, until daylight.

But can’t not remember all those living (kind of) under freeways during my last stay in Austin. It was shocking. Love and miss Austin but here, just don’t see thousands of people in sleeping bags under the freeways in minus zero temperatures. It is dangerously cold there, like here, like everywhere, right now. To have no warm place, how does one go on. Texas current government is not known for compassion but the good people there help. The nonprofits, the shelters, and all the kind and generous individuals and families.

I have a photo of the YMCA in Austin (used to swim laps there) where someone hung a clothes line, so unhoused could somehow launder and dry and have something clean to wear. It was absolutely full. All the kind and generous ones did that, one step to make another person’s life, probably someone who’d had misfortune, a little more humane.

Back to selfish me. My wonderful, inspirational, sister-in-law reminded me that in a few months I’ll be lap swimming outside early mornings in summer. Sun coming up in the east, in the pool, moving. It is so so so so so happiness. I can’t wait to walk from the pool through Monticello downtown 7:30 a.m. in July. The peace just soaks me.

Keep stretching that knee. Keep standing up. Keep walking. Be healthy. Summer will come.