living another way

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of annual mammogram and call back (third year in a row with benign diagnosis), I amended one of my daily affirmations: "God, thank you for another day" and added, "help me live another way." I do my affirmations on my daily brisk 30 mins. walks (a.m. and p.m.) and every other day 30 mins. swimming laps.

This Saturday, 4/10, I unexpectedly received what I had asked for: a slower way of life, mandated by a broken right ankle and 8 weeks of expected recovery. In a flash of a few seconds, my husband's aluminum ladder collapsed, smashing into the green plastic potting table where I was finishing plant pottings, both tumbling me over as I tried to move away, catching my right foot under ladder or table, red clay pots tumbling on my forhead and chest, elbows splayed on the concrete to break my fall, shouts of "watch out" from my husband as he fell every which way, "Oh my God", shouted twice by me as I pulled out my leg, clutching my knee to my chest and we both gaped in horror at the sight of my right foot turned to the extreme (almost 180 degrees) while a huge bulge the size of an orange appeared to the left of what used to be my ankle socket. Just like that my life slowed from my sometimes manic, always purposeful lifestyle to a crawl of minutes.

Minutes waiting for the EMT fellows to arrive, minutes in the ambulance, minutes stretching into hours in ER as I was assessed, put into twilight sleep, ankle relocated, x-rays taken, first "how to use crutches" lessons given and shuttled home by my husband who was suffering from survivor guilt. As a trained safety professional the quick failure of his carefully placed ladder, used over the years to trim our backyard bushes, also represented his self-identified failure as a safety professional and husband. But it was an accident he didn't cause and I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or the right place at the right time.

Maybe I was just where I needed to be to prevent his crashing and breaking his neck, or maybe my injury was setting me on another path. A path to spend more time writing, slowing down, watching how my 10 year old dog, Lia, licks her marrow bones three times and then gently lick the delicious remnants of juice the dribbles on her leg as she holds the marrow bones in her paws. Watching the cactus wren bully her way past the doves to the choice sunflower seeds on the bird feeder.
Maybe I was just where I needed to be....

So here I am, on the 3rd day of recovery, certainly not rising very fast, not yet sleeping well, wiggling my toes, icing my ankle, learning how to shower on a chair, how to exercise my arms while resting upright at the computer, how to breathe deeply while curved like a parenthesis on the worn leather sofa, always with right leg up and left leg resting between slogs to the bathroom.

Maybe I will learn to live more slowly. Maybe I will take those lessons past recovery into a renewed life, sometime around early June--the hottest month of the year in Tucson, past this lovely, extended, pollen-filled springtime when my dwarf orange tree is fully blooming and perfuming the infamous patio where this journey began three days ago.

I will attempt to post daily. Weave this into a new routine, take chances with new technology and grow, slowly, as I walk, one faltering but still purposeful, certainly more mindful, step at a time.