Winter Moon of the Winter Solstice
The ancientrail of illness and recovery continues here on Shadow Mountain. Yesterday it brought an unusual moment, a highly emotional tidal wave crashing through my early Christmas morning consciousness.
The immediate trigger was, I think, the pile of Hanukkah presents on the coffee table beside me. The Christmas spirit that still flows around this secular, pagan heart saw them. And rejected the moment. What followed was a period of dislocation, the closest analogy I can give is culture shock.
What was I doing in this house with this holiday underway? Mom, Dad, Mary and Mark rose up. I missed them all, a lot. Further the friends from Minnesota. Why was I here in cold Colorado, in the mountains, when my family and friends were dead or far away?
The logic of these feelings did not account for Kate, who worked the New York Times crossword across the room. Nor did it account for Jon, Ruth and Gabe. Nor the dogs. These were dramatic, histrionic feelings, slouching toward despair and isolation and loneliness. I cried for the distance I felt from the house, from my life here.
In talking with Kate about this later in the day she offered an interesting perspective. After my Minnesota trip in September, I began to forego my workouts which had become too painful. The decision to replace the knee had been made not long before that trip. Oddly, at some point the act of sitting became painful which made using the computer in the loft all but impossible.
Then on December 1st I had knee surgery. Since then, 3 weeks plus, I’ve lived with pain and meds, often so disoriented that I lost track of sentences midway.
Kate thinks I may have lost my self. The self that cut down the trees, cut up the slash. The self that writes. The self that hikes. The self that engages easily with the world. That self was lost in the last few months, diminished, then vanished. The journey from the trauma of surgery to healing and beyond has displaced at least my sense of self.
All this came to a confluence yesterday. Still not sure what to make of it though the crying felt cleansing. I’ve not had the same feelings since then.
Winter Moon of the Winter Solstice
My mother and my Aunt Virginia helped me. At the family farm in Morristown, Indiana I drug myself along the sofa, my head often collapsed on the floor, getting rug burns as I pulled it along with the rest of my body. They helped, but it was only that young boy who could move his legs, drag his body along. He did it. Since then, I have identified walking upright in the world as a major theme of my life.
So. The old computer, dead to me when I went in for surgery, has shown signs of life. I’m very glad because there are many things on here I want, need to keep. It’s six years old though, past its sell-by date, and I no longer trust it, so I’m going to buy a new one after the holidays. I’m glad to have it available now, however, because it means I can visit the loft again in the early morning, expand my daily circuit, get me out of the house for a while.