Rediscovery

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the good and kind podiatrist released my left foot from its post-op boot prison and sent me on my way, no walking or other movement restrictions, along with his reassurance that I can’t make the healing bone fragments worse unless I drop something on them again. I felt like Dobby with a new pair of socks and looked like a newborn fawn wobbling its way through the unsteady challenge of making my legs work in rhythmic harmony as I stepped down gingerly from the exam table and headed for the exit. Left foot, right foot, left foot again, right foot again, and repeat.

What the toes have to do with my gait and how my hips are involved I’m still trying to figure out, but we’ll all get there, my bones and muscles and nerve endings and I, moving forward into both familiar and uncharted territories. Which means, I resumed my morning walks with a deep and wide-eyed wonder after four-plus weeks of being sidelined, reluctantly content to look out the windows and wonder what might have changed Out There. I did try one downtown-via-the-bus excursion three weeks into my recovery and couldn’t get to the bathtub fast enough (hard to do while limping) at the end of the day for a soothing eucalyptus and Epsom salt soak. My kind and understanding supervisor approved a remote work schedule until I could more easily navigate the cold concrete sidewalks from the bus stop to the office without cautiously dodging the ice and snow.

On that first reintroduction to the walking paths, it was clear our industrious moles had taken over, enjoying the absence of human bootsteps on the landscape. Hills and mounds were everywhere and frozen in mid-unearthing, creating treacherous speed bumps just the right height to catch the toe of my wellies and send me careening or stumbling. I can’t recall a time where I was more laser-focused on what I was doing, a full-body attentive experience, head on a continuous swivel and eyes raking in all the beauty I’d so longed for while weighted down on the couch with Advil nearby. “I’ve missed you so”, I’d whisper into the woods and fields every ten yards or so and she reciprocated with red flashes of winter’s brilliant cardinals (the birds, not the clerics) and a sharp north wind pushing itself gleefully across my smiling face. Week-old snow still covered the ground and held all manner of nonhuman foot and pawprints to slow me down even more. I saw coyote (more on that in a minute), fox, rabbit, possum, squirrel, raccoon, deer and a few from a relative I couldn’t identify. We’ve always known that more happens beyond our gaze than in front of it out here in the middle of somewhere, but give the wild ones five weeks of unfettered and unwitnessed freedom and some mighty powerful reclaiming goes on. I imagined parties on the paths with their own version of a DJ blaring forest music through the bare branches of all the trees framing the mossy dance floor. From the evidence on the cold ground, it looked as if a pack of coyotes took down or at least feasted on a deer on the ridge just below the sweat lodge circle. I counted three of the poor creature’s four legs scattered as far as the north field (still looking for the fourth one) and its still-meaty spine lay to the right of the short path past the stand of white pines, stark and red against the white snow (at this moment, it seemed wise to look around slowly and carefully for anyone coming back for seconds). I moved forward with a fresh respect for the hardscrabble life our untamed land-mates must endure, and a promise to not add to their troubles.

As of this writing, I’ve made four unbroken treks into the wilderness that is our land north of the house and have come back to the couch with stories, images and lessons only she can provide. The deer trails are clean and wide this time of year, with the snow making them distinct like the chalk outlines on a crime victim. There’s no escape from the reality that food is scarce, shelter from the chill winds even more so and here I am running hot water for a bath simply because I can. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, I know—my life of need and comfort against the furred and feathered existence of creatures whose beauty brings me to my knees pretty regularly. But it’s hard not to feel motherly and want to take them blankets and leftover cornbread, thinking I’m being helpful. If I can walk past them without startling them, maybe that can be enough.

All this from a forced hiatus from walking the land, being in close proximity to her mysteries and gifts…it was all I could do not to curl up on a large patch of frozen moss and fall asleep, hoping to be accepted as One of Them, letting them teach me their ways of survival and after-hours play. Would I give up my evening hot bath for that?

It’s tempting, my friends. Quite tempting.

Slowing it Down

Last Thursday morning as I was working out, the shiny and heavy chrome weight I was lifting over my head slipped out of my hand and landed hard on my left foot. I’d watched the movie “Elf” the night before and the only expletive that came out of my mouth was “son of a nutcracker!” The urgent care x-ray revealed a shattered pinky toe.

So much for that New Year’s resolution.

I’m ensconced on the couch now, toes taped together and wrapped in stretchy smiley face bandages, covered by an ice pack tied with an IKEA dish towel (that will never see the kitchen dishes again, I assure you). On the floor beneath the end table is my left foot’s new ride—an open-toed post-op shoe in desperate need of a fashion upgrade, which I’ll take care of later this afternoon with embroidery floss and a scattering of beads. Until then, the question is…now what? From my perch I can see everything that needs to be dusted and vacuumed, downsized and taken to the thrift store but can do none of it. When the cats get up to stuff (like stealing each other’s food, tipping over the garbage pail, hanging from the curtain hems), my sharp scolding tones do little to discourage them and that spray bottle can only shoot so far (they’re learning that). I’m grateful that I filled the suet feeders before the Great Accident; at least the birds are entertaining and low maintenance. Wait—birds. I still need to let the chickens out and gather eggs. The engineering of that task will give me something else to think about as I sit here also pondering the whole breakfast project.

Until last Thursday, my body had never known any injury that required more than an ice pack or a band-aid. It’s a marvel that I made it this far into my collected decades without such drama (I’ve had my share of other adventures and burdens, to be sure; maybe the universe had pity on me that way). My only stiches and staples were surgery-necessary and the curious scientist in me found the mechanics of it all quite fascinating. I’ve even removed stitches from a few of Patrick’s wounds, a bit squeamishly, but he talked me through and once I got past my hyperactive gag reflex, all went as it should. Maybe I’m more about preventive medicine and habits. Who knows? I left the urgent care limping and giggling a bit, full of questions and happy for the Advil I always carry with me. I’ll pick up a prescription for antibiotics later this morning (a precaution against infection since that suffering little toe was bleeding from blunt trauma) and stop at the store for a few more craft supplies. That post-op shoe of mine is gonna look great when I’m through with it.

Forced pauses and stillness are good for the soul, reminders that perhaps choosing them intentionally is also a wise idea hatched in a relentlessly active mind. In the exam room I heeded, more or less, the instructions to not use my cell phone and found the absence of scrolling refreshing. It gave me space to notice my surroundings, to listen for clues to the activity taking place on the other side of the closed door. I reflected on the signage posted on cabinet doors stating that rude and aggressive behavior from patients would not be tolerated, that parents should not let their children play with the equipment or steal the nonlatex gloves. Sad that those words even need to be posted for all to see. When the nurse returned to wrap me up and send me on my way, I wished her a short day filled with people who were kind and decent. She smiled weakly and nodded, as if daring to hope for such an outcome to her workday was the height of folly. As I drove away, I recommitted myself to inserting as much gentleness into my interactions with strangers as I could, for those few minutes of connection at the bank, the grocery store, the gas station may be all the kindness someone receives that day.

As this new experience unfolds for our household, Patrick is a gem, making me tea and bringing me cookies, apples and scrambled eggs with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. He asks how I’m feeling and during a wake-me-up shooting pain episode last night, gingerly removed my bandages so my toes could breathe a little. It was just the medicine I needed and the sleep that followed was deep, dreamless and without cats (he made sure they stayed downstairs). My mornings now consist of foot baths and dressing changes, easy stretches and looking at the bare trees on the other side of the living room windows, realizing that the seventeen acres of walking paths will not see my footprints for a while. I’m piling up “sitting” work I can tend to that includes prep for an upcoming workshop I’m facilitating on volunteer management fundamentals, putting nonslip nose pads on all my eyeglasses, editing the next two books and creating my 2025 vision board (I’m saving that for last because it promises to be the most fun). Random and occasional napping is not only permitted but encouraged.

When I’m all healed and skipping about again from one happy task to the next, I shall make a note to pause deliberately and relish the learnings that will come from that. Until then, I’ll take this slow medicine gladly. What a gift.

Finding Our Feet

I read somewhere that wearing socks to bed can help you sleep better, so I tried it last night.

It worked, as far as I could tell. I fell asleep and stayed there in that glorious REM spot for most of the night, and my dreams were neither vivid nor absent. Now, I’m not a credentialed scientist but I can at least employ some entry-level research methodologies by wearing socks to bed again tonight, and maybe for the next several nights to compare the results, test for consistency, even throw in a few new variables and plot the outcomes (add a footbath and some coconut lotion, nestle in with the kitten, more pillows, less pillows…we’ll see).

Bottom line here is I need a good night’s sleep. Several million of us do after last week’s election outcomes. I know…socks seem a thin comfort in the face of our shock and anger and deep apprehensions. But we start with what we can manage. I can manage socks for now. And a long overdue break from social media is also in order, not scrolling through the headlines looking for any sign of hope. I’m more likely to find her in the grocery store parking lot, stopping a cart from rolling into a fellow shopper’s passenger side door. That fleeting connection is real and simple and ends in two people exchanging smiles and it’s enough. It has to be or all is lost. I feel that in the marrow of my campaign-weary bones. The mandate to love hasn’t changed. It’s only become more urgent. Kindness—the deep kind, not just pretending to be nice—is still the coin of the realm I want to live in. I must remember this when the angry desire to throw rocks and burn effigies snarls to the surface and threatens to lay waste to all the hard work I’ve done trying to re-set my heart.

Last Wednesday morning, the land knew. She was eerily and respectfully quiet, a mourner with her head bowed in reverence to the tidal wave of grief washing over her. In the middle of our drought, she gave us the rain we so desperately needed when we woke up that day, and it began the slow soothe of our frayed, raw nerves. I had an early morning work commitment and couldn’t disappear into our fields and woods like I wanted, so I slipped into the mid-week traffic, driving next to strangers and searching their faces for clues, anything that would offer a narrow path to connection. We took normal care of each other as we usually do in our metal rolling cages, sharing the road, using our turn signals (mostly) and letting folks in front of us who clearly have to be on time for something and are cutting it close. I arrived at my destination with precious little memory of how I got there. I tucked the experience away to unfold on Thursday morning’s walk.

Today’s rains are steady and gentle, and I made it to the small clearing in the woods where I usually pause to sit on the hard wood of a massive black walnut trunk and Figure Things Out. The scent of woodsmoke from nearby houses’ fire pits stirred memories of our first years here with a wood burning stove of our own. We’d shovel out the previous day’s ashes and set split oak and cherry chunks onto the cold bricks, light the kindling and swing the door shut to watch the gathering flames wrap themselves around the wood. Many’s the night we sat together, Patrick and I, in front of that cast-iron stove, our legs outstretched with the soles of our feet warming deliciously inside our socks (again with the socks…). After a time, we’d check the clock and reluctantly close the damper before heading responsibly to bed until it was time to go to work. I don’t recall if our sleep was better for it, but my memories sure are. And in them I find another source of comfort and reassurance in these encroaching dark times.

I have no grand or exact predictions about what’s to come. For me, it’s still early days and I’m trying to catch my breath. Others in my orbit are telling me the same and we’re giving ourselves room to react on our way to response. I think of so many fellow humans in the world who don’t have that luxury, whose lives have been wrenched from their hands and turned upside down and they are pulled forward in a stumbling dead run just to get out of harm’s way. Too many haven’t made it to any sort of safe place. I am lucky to be able to pause and regather my strength. It’s what I must do; I know no other option.

So, dear friends, I will not let a necessary and temporary foray into inertia paralyze me. My feet have been places, seen a lot, collected stories and purpose and soon we’ll be summoned to new places, along with the rest of our very selves—shoulders to bear the weight, arms and hands to carry the weary, voices to speak what matters most.

We’ll all need a good night’s sleep before we head out. Best put on your socks.

Of Dew and Gravity

A furious and gusty wind stripped the trees near the house bare last Thursday. Cottonwoods, sycamores, black walnuts, the 100-year-old silver maple out back—all caught naked before the sun had gone down. For the better part of summer and early fall, we had set up one of our market canopies (the first one we ever owned, a little 10’-square humble contraption with a red nylon “roof” and splayed retractable legs) just at the western edge of the mulberry grove off the front porch and spent many an afternoon gathered with dear family and friends, working out the world’s ills and scraping salad bowls and casserole dishes clean while the kittens gamboled about between our stretched-out legs. Pulling up to the house after work last week, the whole affair was caught helplessly on two of our shepherd’s hooks, the red nylon canopy ripped and ragged, metal frame bent and tangled. I guess that’s it, then. Summer is officially over.

Friday morning’s walk was a scouting expedition filled with curiosity at every bend in the path—what did the wind knock over and lay down that would require chainsaw skills and heavy lifting to clear? I can still spot a new fallen tree in the woods, even though last year’s soldiers lay peaceful and spent on the forest floor, now horizonal food and shelter for the four-legged and winged creatures who take up residence there. Some of the smaller trunks get caught on their way down and hang suspended between the branches of their siblings. It’s a physics lesson and moment of wonder all in one, and my secret desire to be at least near the woods when these mighty relatives fall rises to the surface. What does a falling tree sound like when it hits the ground here? I’ve only heard that one time during the derecho of 2012 (when I also had the frightened privilege of seeing a bolt of lightning strike the sinewy arm of an osage orange on the ridge) and it was from within the safety of our home’s walls (swaying ever so slightly on the foundation). I’d beat it to the bathtub to crouch with a towel double-folded across my head and neck, doubting the protection that was supposed to give my arteries and spinal cord. Bottom line: big trees fall hard and loud and the ground shudders on impact. I can only assume it happens similarly in the woods.

Wind and gravity are a potent combination and in mid-autumn, creating a spectacle worth pulling up a chair for. As I sat on my favorite fallen tree in the woods early yesterday morning, I watched as a red maple and its neighboring blue beech unhinged leaves from their uppermost branches. Somehow, Thursday’s gusts had spared or missed these gentle giants and it was the sheer definition of serene to bear witness to gravity’s softer touch. Leaves make letting go look effortless. I’ve seen spinners, spiralers, floats and short drops and upon inspection, the landing looked quiet and nonviolent. How does something go from attachment to sweet release with no broken bones? Sure wish all the headers I’ve taken in my short lifetime were as graceful and poetic.

We need softer landings these days, my dear friends. As the Ohio drought trudges on, I’m betting on a cooling autumn’s last drops of morning dew to sink into the soil around our cherry and oak trees and one particularly thirsty curly willow. Some mornings the grass is juicy and my walking wellies collect stray maple and shagbark leaves, little itinerant travelers plastered securely to the toes of my boots until a thick patch of crabgrass combs them off into a new adventure. It’s not enough of a drink to reverse the damage of the past several weeks, but the land sips it in anyway. Mild and episodic frosts will soon give way to winter’s white and frozen coat of snow and we’ll need to tuck in closer to one another just to keep warm.

I think that’s the key to survival. Letting go and settling in together. We can do this. It’s just how we are.