Rehearsing stories...trail magic

Rehearsing.
The same stories, again and again.
Remembering that which has been dismembered.

~*~
Detours.

I love them and I hate them, depending on the detour.

When I am "in the flow," allowing life to happen instead of trying to make it happen, the detours are adventures, like "trail magic" the few times I've backpacked and the many times I've hiked.

I can no longer backpack, due to the widespread nerve damage in my feet and legs and back and arms and hands and neck and jaws. I can seldom even hike, except during my good weeks between epidurals. And then no more than a couple or so miles.

My last real hike was in May, 2014. Eight miles, mostly along the Appalachian Trail through Grayson Highlands in Virginia. My beloved Grayson Highlands, where feral ponies run free; where, in 2006, I buried tokens for the life I had ended in my womb in 1978. And not just for that life, but for that season of life, including the relationship with the father and our serendipitous, bittersweet reconnection in 2006.

In May, 2014, after I received my third epidural and had hit my "good weeks," my 23 year old son and I went for a day hike at Grayson. As usual, we started at Massie Gap. We hiked together in the beginning but then I told him to go on ahead; I know how slow I am.

I made my way over the rugged terrain and drank in the views from the giant rock outcrops...
the awe...
the vastness of the sky...
the ocean of mountains...
the wind...
the sun...
the trees...
the foliage and wildflowers...
the ponies in their small herds, some with newborn foals, grays and chestnuts and creams and dapples, long silver and blond manes, and forelocks that fall into their eyes...

Wanting these moments to never end. And wanting so badly for these epidurals to keep working and maybe even reverse this nerve damage that had started in 2011 after taking a drug for a toenail fungus. But it wasn't diagnosed as nerve damage until I saw my eighth doctor in May, 2013, who told me I had polyradiculitis which means multiple nerve roots in my neck and low back are swollen at my spinal cord.

I asked the doctor if he thought I could get well. He said, "If we can find the cause, then yes, I think you can." I had been questing for answers since the onset in 2011. I am still questing for answers.

But that day in May, 2014, while on my last real hike though I didn't know at the time it was my last real hike at least for the time being, I met Jason at the Thomas Knob Shelter. Jason's trail name is Rising Tide.

I was sitting alone at the shelter when he walked up, a lone thru hiker. He was wearing one of those Gatsby, golfer-type hats. It was checkered green and white and matched his backpack. Just he and I at that shelter on the Appalachian Trail, a serendipitous encounter. He had plans to backpack the Triple Crown which includes the Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.

We exchanged trail talk and I shared with him my dream of thru hiking the AT, but that I have nerve damage and didn't know if I'd ever be able. He then shared with me that he had been a quadriplegic just 15 years prior. He'd been injured in an auto accident. He shared how the medical field told him he would never again have use of his limbs. So, he turned to pot. "Lots and lots of weed," he said. Slowly his left side came back and then his right and then he started walking and then he started jogging on the beach, and now he was thru hiking 2180 miles.

Trail magic.
I believe.
Or at least want to believe.

~Thomas Knob Shelter, where I met Rising Tide~

"As he spoke my spirit climbed into the sky.
I bid it to return
to hear your wonderous stories.
Return to hear your wonderous stories."
~Lyrics by Yes~

In-breath...

I wish it were spring now, instead of fall.
I wish a lot of things.

~*~

Tuesday, 11/08/2016

I walked into the bedroom around 11:15 PM. Hubby was already asleep on his side of the king-size bed. As usual he was sparsely covered even though the temperature was to dip into the low 40s. So I pulled the comforter up over his body and gently laid it across his shoulders. He didn't budge as he lay on his left side facing the wall with the two windows that peer into the backyard.

Typically we leave the windows' vinyl mini-blinds pulled all the way up during the day to let the outside in. Sometimes we leave them up at night depending on the weather and our sleep-in-or-not plans for the next morning. Tonight they are pulled down to help block the cold. There are old storm windows on the outside of each window, providing some insulation. There are no screens. I don't like to look through screens. Almost every morning I stop in front of these bedroom windows and peer out to see if the deer family is in the backyard. Almost every morning I say hello to the trees as I am letting the outside in.

These windows face east and every morning on the sunny days, the sun-rays catch the two marble-sized, cut-crystal spheres that hang with invisible fishing line from the curtain rods which hold the tapered rose-colored valances. Small rainbows dance around the room on the bed and the walls and the hard wood floor, which often brings to mind Joni Mitchell's song Chelsea Morning. The rainbows don't last long before the sun moves up higher into the sky.

The comforter on our bed is a cheap one, but it serves us well. Our dog friends have left their love-marks on it. Picks in the comforter from where the dogs will dig before they settle in and lay down. I love watching the ritual dig. I don't scold the dogs for digging on the comforter. That's one reason I bought a cheap comforter. One side is a pale green color and the other a pale bronze color. I flip the sides depending on whether I feel bronze or green.

I crawled into my side of the bed and lay down on my back. The sheets were cool and clean. I pulled up the cover sheet and small blanket and comforter. It felt good. Safe. Comforting.

My head on the pillow, I checked my iPhone. Updates on the election. It was still a long way from done, but there was so much red on the map already. I was concerned. What if Trump wins? What will that mean? There's just no way, surely. No way.

I clicked the phone putting it to sleep and lay in the dark with my eyes open. I felt a sense of trepidation. What if Trump wins? What if Trump wins...

I paused my thoughts, noticing the quiet between them. That space in between, where perhaps some sort of truth resides. It's a space I can't put into words.

I closed my eyes.

As I breathed in and out, I counted. Something I do often these days, to help me self-sooth and enter the sacred world of sleep. Of dreams. Of another dimension.

One with the in-breath. One with the out-breath.
Two with the in-breath. Two with the out-breath.
Three with the in-breath...

~*~

Chelsea Morning
by Joni Mitchell

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I heard
Was a song outside my window, and the traffic wrote the words
It came a-reeling up like Christmas bells and rapping up like pipes and drums

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll wear it 'til the night comes

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw
Was the sun through yellow curtains, and a rainbow on the wall
Blue, red, green and gold to welcome you, crimson crystal beads to beckon

Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
There's a sun show every second

Now the curtain opens on a portrait of today
And the streets are paved with passersby
And pigeons fly
And papers lie
Waiting to blow away

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew
There was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too
And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses
Oh, won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses

When the curtain closes and the rainbow runs away
I will bring you incense owls by night
By candlelight
By jewel-light
If only you will stay
Pretty baby, won't you
Wake up, it's a Chelsea morning



~*~

Tomorrow will be 13 weeks since my surgery...

My hip is coming along, though it still feels lame. I have a limp, which the surgeon said may last a year.  I concentrate to walk so that I don't limp. But when the fatigue takes command, it's much more difficult. Trekking poles help me. And of course my walker helps.

My energy remains low due to the surgery mixed with my ongoing nerve damage. I'm again limited mainly to self-care.

I've been wrestling with depression more than usual. It's been years since it's been this bad. Depression doesn't help with the energy problem.

Last week I wrote that "I am my own caregiver. It's a big job, being the caregiver and the one in need of care. There are no "thank yous," no pay check, very little acknowledgement."

I'm reminding my self to thank my self.

This past Saturday, I treated my self to a day on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a lot of work, mainly due to the weather being cold and all the things I have to do to get out the door. I told my self, "If one of your loved ones was disabled, you would do all you could to make it special. Do the same for your self."

The weather was cold. It must have been 25 degrees with the cold wind on the mountain where I walked through the pasture near Rocky Knob overlook. After my short hike at Rocky Knob I visited The Saddle overlook and watched the sun set; it was colder and windier than Rocky Knob. I counted eight contrails in the clear sky as the sun dipped behind Buffalo Mountain. I've never seen that many contrails over The Saddle. It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Lots of sky travelers.

After the sun set, I visited, for the second time that day, one of my regular stops -- the Poor Farmer's Market in Meadows of Dan. Hardly anyone was there, unlike earlier that day when I stopped on my way to Rocky Knob. At that first stop, the store had been the most crowded I'd ever seen it. As I was paying for my wedge of sharp cheddar cheese in the black wax and Saltine crackers, I learned a parade was coming. The fifth annual Christmas parade. A parade in Meadows of Dan? This small, "unincorporated" community consists of a hodgepodge of local stores, a small church with a cemetery, a couple restaurants, and a candy factory. It made me smile that the locals put on a parade. But I didn't stay for the parade; Rocky Knob and The Saddle were calling.

On this second visit of the day I chatted with Charlie, one of the ladies who works in the deli section, as I ate a cup of homemade vegetable beef soup while sitting in a wooden rocking chair next to a life size, old-man mannequin who was sitting in the rocking chair to my right. He was Caucasian with a gray beard and was wearing overalls, a checkered flannel shirt, and a Santa's hat. He didn't have a name, so I named him Abe Clause. Charlie liked that name.

On the drive home I saw two different deer at two different sightings. Each right at the edge of the road.

The first deer startled me because the evening was dusk-dark, that time in twilight when it's not dark enough for eyes to shine in the headlights and not bright enough to see the deer's body camouflaged by the muted light and foliage. She was on the right side at the road's edge.

The second sighting was clearer because dusk had dipped into darkness, and I saw the deer's eyes shine. I braked to a full stop. He looked at me, right by the edge of the road on the left. His antlers were coming in, maybe six points. He then turned around and trotted back into the dark woods.

I continued south on the Parkway.

It was a good day.

~*~

I am  riding my bike again. The farthest I've ridden is 11.50 miles.

My first ride (since the day before surgery) was on Saturday, 11/05. I rode 9-plus miles at Muddy Creek Greenway.

My first partial trip around Salem Lake was on Wednesday, 11/16. I saw three different heron sightings in three different places. At first I thought it was maybe a different heron each time. Then I changed my mind; I think it was the same heron.

That day, in my head, instead of "heron," I thought "crane." I later looked up the significance of crane sightings, though a heron is different from a crane. (I later googled crane and heron. I'm pretty confident the lake friend is a heron.) Regardless, it was significant for me that she welcomed me back to the Lake.  The day before, on Tuesday, 11/15, I was in a deep depression. The ride and the heron gave me a relief from the gloom that has been visiting. "That has" instead of "that had" because it is still visiting and I can recall the heron in the present and bring to mind that bit of relief and connection.

On Friday, 11/18, I rode all the way around Salem Lake for the first time since surgery. I rode it again on Friday, 11/25.

~*~

I accidentally deleted all the photographs on my blog, which saddens me. I'm slowly adding them back. Certain pictures hold deep significance for me. I want to keep those here in the blogosphere.

I've said before and still think that one day, maybe in the not-too-distant future, the internet is going to crash. And blogs will disappear. Or worse yet, private blogs will be made public. Which makes me laugh out loud. Oh the secrets that would be released! But hardly anyone would be able to find them, at least for the unknown folks. Unknown in the sense of non-celebrity.

I wish it were spring instead of fall.

I wish a lot of things.

Muddy Creek. 11/05/16. First ride since 8/29/16, the day before hip surgery.