mind muscles matter

I have been consciously working my leg, back and arm muscles so I won't atrophy too much during this 8 week recovery period. But it's my mind muscles that are taking my attention now. A couple of people have told me that the anesthetic drugs can stay in my body for a month or so and that's the reason I have told myself for my occasional word or thought loss, my heavy-lidded eyes and mid-morning need to take a nap. But even beyond that, I seem to only want to watch movies and not even read (except for the review of the local and NY Times newspapers in the morning).

So yesterday, I made myself push through the nap-need to go online and respond to a Writer's Digest prompt, producing a short poem. Then last night, I showed up for my Grant Road Task Force meeting and took notes for 3 hours. I had a bit of a back and abdominal strain, sitting with an elevated leg for that long, but my ankle didn't seem to suffer from it. In exchange, I got my mind on something other than pain or discomfort in my ankle, and focused on relocation of utilities and what the TF members were expressing. It felt good to get the brain cells moving and reassured me that I can still do my work.

Today, one of my writing colleagues expressed the desire to see more details in my short poem from yesterday. I can do that and I can push myself to do another writing. It's important to have some others in my sidelines cheering me on. External motivation matters. I saw myself hobbling across the meeting room last night and managing pretty well. The same image can be a motivator for me in my writing. I don't know why I think writing should be as easy as gliding across the ice pond at Lord's Park in Elgin, Illinois. Writing sometimes is a glide, sometimes is a hike up a steep hill, sometimes is a tumble down a ravine and sometimes is a hobble across a room.

As I recall my mom's struggle with dementia, I am more empathy now for the challenge it was for her to connect her thoughts with reality. In the end, I think, she relied on my reading to her the familiar story of "Heidi" because she didn't have to try to compose the words herself anymore--the story showed her the way. I take comfort in believing that the sense of the story brought meaning to her last days.

All of this is to say, and I am stumbling and groping a bit here now--working my way through a forest of thoughts and words, that muscles of the mind matter, the words those muscles express also matter. And so, I write.