Two days ago I called my surgeon’s office to double check on how much weight I could start lifting with my left arm.
The doc said I am good to go and to pay attention to how my arm feels. I am surprised they couldn’t hear the barbaric yawp that sounded off inside my head or feel the fireworks shooting from my fingers.
I worked very hard not to throw the iron around but it wasn’t easy, especially because I had been exploding with impatience.
I was good about not pressing as hard as I could because I wanted to see what my arm could do over a period of time.
Can’t say I was surprised because as it has healed there are fewer moments in which I have felt discomfort so I have done things with it absentmindedly because the brain had no reason to be worried about problems.
Got me thinking about a couple of the audio messages I have inserted into the last two posts and whether I want to do more.
Got me thinking about all sorts of things that I see and think about. Got me muttering another mantra of “you musn’t lie to yourself” as a reminder of the importance of focusing on what is true.
A Favorite Piece Of Fiction
I could write 10,000 letters to you, myself or others and still not run out of material. Sometimes I think about writing Hans Zimmer a letter to tell him about how I watch videos like this and see a tapestry of images inside my head.
There are layers upon layers that I will often pull apart and reassemble inside my head but rarely get placed upon the page.
I would be curious to speak with Hans about whether he sees/feels the music the same way I see/feel the words.
It reminded me of something I wrote and consider to be a favorite piece of fiction called A Partial Tale of Two Liars.
Here is a partial excerpt
I once knew two liars.
A girl and a boy who came of age during a time when science was considered truth and magic was considered to be the province of con men, charlatans and snake oil salesmen.
The two of them grew up in separate towns, went to separate schools and for a very long time lived separate lives.
Lives that were filled with the normal ups and downs and experiences people have. They loved and lost and lived and laughed.
All of these things were done apart from each other which made perfect sense because they grew up in separate worlds and had no reason to be aware of the existence of the other until the time came when they had no reason not to.
The intersection between their lives turned their worlds upside down and inside out. It forced them to reconsider all they once knew as true and made them question all they thought they were as individuals.
Had they lived during the age of magic they wouldn’t have questioned any of these things. They would have accepted the things their hearts knew as truth even when their heads questioned them.
But they didn’t grow up during the age of magic so they relied upon what they knew to be true science.
Science provided logic, reason and rational explanations for why people were as they were and did as they did. But even though science ruled the day magic still owned the night and under the moonlit skies its influence was more profound.
Yoga Morning, Yoga Evening
I am about a week into this new era of Josh does Yoga. A week into trying to emulate the pose the instructor does on the screen.
A week into me muttering curses and thinking about how some of these poses remind me of lying on the bathroom floor.
Granted I am not bleeding out and thinking about the consequences of letting myself fall asleep. There is no ‘if you close your eyes you will never wake up again’ going on at all.
But there is a, ‘maybe we’ll just lie here and watch him do the work’ going on.
That never happens, I never let myself completely give up on it. It is hard now, but if I keep pushing myself it will get easier and there are benefits.
Greater flexibility will improve sleep, comfort on long car drives, airplanes and general feeling of well being. Greater flexibility will help my workouts improve.
This is me preparing for the second half of life so that I can always take care of myself.
That four day hospital adventure and the arm surgery made it clear I hate asking for help with things I consider to be basic.
I don’t want to have to have anyone help me walk, get up from the floor or open a jar. Some of that was necessary for a brief moment in time, but it was really hard.
I know who and what I am. I know who and what I want to be. I am a work in progress like everyone. Some of that work in progress is based upon what I know about me now and where I am trying to get to.
But it is also tied to sitting in that hospital bed in Grapevine at night and how it made me feel. I remember asking one of the techs to show me how to turn off the alarm on my bed.
Remember thinking about getting out and going for a walk. Remember thinking I could hold onto both IV stands for support and I could test myself.
I wasn’t afraid to do it but I did wonder if I would slow my ability to get out. The first couple of nights I didn’t have my phone, ID or anything resembling cash.
Reminded me of when my dear friend David called me from Mass General and asked if I could bust him out of there.
Thought of who I could call to do the same and who I thought might actually show.
But that is over and done with now, I didn’t try to break out of the joint or ask anyone to help me.
The memory hasn’t faded but the need to build a better foundation has stuck with me. Because you don’t know what could happen and so I want to build myself up beyond where I was so that if shit happens again I am even better prepared than I was.
So it s Yoga morning, Yoga evening alongside of weightlifting. I can see the changes in my body.
Summer is almost here, my favorite time of year. That is a sunset from when I lived in Grapevine. Sunsets here have been very pretty and interestingly enough shots from my apartments have memorialized some of my favorites.
This August marks 10 years since I moved back here. Ten years since I started over and then started over again.
So many memories, so many stories and so much more to come.
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