Rattled

(My dark side loves this picture, that is all)

It was a friend who pointed out to me that my fall had more serious effects than I was acknowledging and she reminded me to be more gentle and not to attempt so much.

I've always been wary of being one of the medical broadcast people, you know the ones, you meet them and you get chapter and verse of every single doctor visit, ache, pain, diagnosis, prognosis for the last 2 years. I'm not talking serious stuff here, just the ongoing physical setbacks in everyone's life. It's the ad nauseum reports I'm talking.

So I've kept shtum. But, yeah there have been skeletal challenges. So yeah, I am respecting my newfound - and hopefully temporary - limitations a wee bit more.

Which got me to thinking:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

And I expect the feelings can be marvellous or downright awful when you think about it.

I try not to revisit a deep, hurtful family shunning. And clichés don't help: you know the ones "move beyond it," "their loss," blah-blah. Fine and dandy until it happens to you. The pain is always throbbing away in the background.

I focus on lovely stuff right now:

The unexpected success of a writers' workshop I'm conducting.
The thoughtful link a dear blog friend provided for a free publishing critique which had a cap of 1000 participants. I just made it under the wire.
A dinner invitation for tomorrow.
Today - a day I've put aside just for me to do with what I will. Finish the knitting project - photo soon - finalize Session 2 of the workshop, some baking, making yogurt, and staring off into space for as long as I want.

The winter of my discontent.

Intermittent telephone and internet problems which Bob, the Bell repairman, has tried to fix a few times now. He's back again today. He's like an old friend.

How does he remain cheerful in the face of a biting blizzard of ice pellets hitting his face. Outside, wearing mitts as he splices narrow gauge wires and bits of plastic as I hobble around indoors, still in pyjamas and robe.

I feel proud I managed to offload and then reload the dishwasher. Everything is a remarkable effort in the jabs of pain crawling up and down my spine. Stoic I am not. My pain threshold is very low. I learned that in childbirth.

I do a tally in my fingers. My BFF dying so horribly, leaving me bottled up with grief and heartbreak.

My chimney fire, still unresolved, still waiting for parts for the chimney and for the weather to stabilize to let the repair guys on the roof.

Even though I don't heat most of my rooms, my electricity bills are high enough to leave me a little breathless each time they pop into my email for normally the wood stove heats the house.

I try and balance all this off with the positives, a series of workshops I'll be conducting on memoir writing with a publish at the end of it, my new musical drama back on track (we think – casting out here on the Edge is always a challenge) and private software training sessions. And knitting. And reading. And writing.

And somehow, it's not enough.

You can call me a whinebag.

I won't mind.

In fact, you can join me.

Perennially cheerful doesn't cut it today.

Riff

Riff

Definition:
riffing. 1. talking via stream-of-consciousness thinking 2. freeform talk 3. first-derivative talking. I sat down to write you a letter and then picked up the tape ......

I do this riffing thing. Ephemeral thoughts. None of it cohesive enough to remember but I am sometimes astonished at my own brilliance. Then poof, thoughts evaporate, coalesce into something else, another bauble in the imagination, darting like dragonflies in the twilight.

I went out today for the first time since last Wednesday. Not for long. But enough to release me from that helpless invalid feeling. At my age, and so much loss behind me, there's an untold thrill on being this side of the daisies.

I was going to share a picture of my back and butt here but hey, the fact that I nearly gagged when I put up that small mirror and surveyed the damage in the big mirror? I kept thinking: that blackness all over your back could have been your head.. I'll spare you and myself the gory evidence.

I'm working on a non-fiction piece for Canada Writes, in case any of you are interested, there's the link. It's one I wrote years ago and it was published somewhere small but I can't remember where and I'm editing it down from 3,000 words to the 1,500 required. It's a funny (not at the time) account of an absolute weekend-from-hell in Winnipeg. I will share when it's all re-polished and submitted.

And I was reflecting yet again on this time of loss. I so miss my BFF and writing to her every day of the small stuff, you know? And then another friend dies in Ontario, only 63, had survived her first bout of cancer 10 years ago and then was taken to hospital with a bad flu last Wednesday as I was somersaulting down my driveway and subsequently CatScanned and she was riddled. She was dead by Saturday. She was a vibrant, well-travelled woman. And memorable for her distinctive voice and outrageous hair and kindness, she was very kind.

The ranks are thinning, my friends, we need to make the most of what's left of it.

Starting now.