I began this week tossing things from the closet, the drawers and shelves in the pantry and any other space that looked overburdened. January is a wonderful time to clear one's house and one's head...a time to come clean -- why wait until spring? It is amazing to me how many things I have accumulated - some I don't even remember using like the box of oil crayons that I'd planned to use on my first painting. Never happened. I realized that the true artist in our family had been my older brother. I was left with a good sense of color and design but without the ability to put paint to canvas. A dear friend suggested I use a giant brush, to extend my brushstrokes thereby expanding my sense of freedom -- perhaps even my view of myself. So far I haven't had the courage to do it. I keep thinking that like all of the other boxes of unused tools that I tossed today, the giant brush will find its way into the trash as well. But...maybe not. Maybe I have to take the risk. Stay tuned.
Another thing that drew my attention this week was an article in the New York Times about Fainting Goats http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/dining/06frozen.html. The goats have a genetic predisposition to begin to lean one way or another if they are startled. The leaning or "fainting" lasts for about ten seconds. Older goats learn early on to brace their legs when this fainting feeling happens. Amazing, isn't it? If you were fortunate enough to have seen the article, you'll perhaps understand my affinity for the photo -- one half page of Chip, a Fainting Goat, innocently staring directly at the reader, looking as handsome as can be. He has been on my mind ever since I laid eyes on him. I believe it is the sheer vulnerability of the animal that draws me. My family chuckles when I bring up the subject but I know better. Chip is a vision not to be tossed with the January cleaning but to be savored as another of God's miracles.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
It's A New Day, A New Life...
Somehow it's important for me to believe we can all turn a page, find a blank slate and color in whatever life we choose. It is particularly important to me this year because at times I feel the burden of age at my back. I slough it off, but know it's there none the less. Smoothing the page or rubbing my hand across the slate are part of the process of starting anew. So are the colors I choose.
I am what one would call a "color junkie." I carry paint chips and fabric samples in my coat pockets and spend hours working out palettes. I thought until now that I just had an affinity for color and fabric. But what I have just realized is that this is really my attempt to create an atmosphere that supports our lives whether in peace and tranquility, joy or excitement. It is more about creating the ambiance in which we live than just having a desire to play with chips.
My friends tell me they plan to bury me with my paint chips and fabric samples! We laugh about it. But it is a symbol of the life I have attempted to create...and still do.
How do YOU start anew? What do you use to create the ambiance in which to live your life? I'd love to hear from you.
Blessings on this first day of 2010 and always!
Christina
I am what one would call a "color junkie." I carry paint chips and fabric samples in my coat pockets and spend hours working out palettes. I thought until now that I just had an affinity for color and fabric. But what I have just realized is that this is really my attempt to create an atmosphere that supports our lives whether in peace and tranquility, joy or excitement. It is more about creating the ambiance in which we live than just having a desire to play with chips.
My friends tell me they plan to bury me with my paint chips and fabric samples! We laugh about it. But it is a symbol of the life I have attempted to create...and still do.
How do YOU start anew? What do you use to create the ambiance in which to live your life? I'd love to hear from you.
Blessings on this first day of 2010 and always!
Christina
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas Morning
I apologize for not writing in this blog for so long, but my focus has been on healing my knee and I have just had no words. But it is Christmas morning, a clean, white slate full of promise and so I am writing to wish the very best of all good things -- to you and to those you love.
Blessings.
Christina
Blessings.
Christina
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Ice Packs and Apple Pies
For 5 weeks now I have been the student and pain has been the teacher. The goal? Surrender. Sometimes, when there is no place to turn, when I've taken my pain meds and my knee is increasingly hot and swollen, I raise it on pillows, apply my ice packs and lower my body so my knee is above my heart...and then, just surrender. The pain is here, at this moment, I think. It may not be in moments to come, or it may. Either way, the pain and I are in a process called healing. I imagine the joints arguing with the new titanium parts. My body doesn't want to accept them. Tough, I think, that's the direction we're headed.
I begin to think of the argument going on in my knee and realize that my job, as the recipient of the pain, is to just "be" -- to allow these vying factions the time and space to accept each other (I know, I anthropomorphize it, don't I). Instead, I focus on the grayness of this November day, as gray as gray can be. November always delivers. It creates the perfect atmosphere for being with our loved ones, for hunkering in front of the fire, for raising a glass of cheer or praise. November is the perfect background for celebration and joy, for seeing the bare bones of things, for moving from the exterior to the interior. Some say gloomy. I cherish the gloom. It allows me the space to reignite those forces I will need for winter.
And so, two days from that great American holiday, I will put the butter on the counter to come to room temperature, measure out the flour, peel the apples, prepare the pumpkin filling -- between rests with an ice pack. I will respect the pain and let it flourish and then subside. I will keep on keeping on.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.
I begin to think of the argument going on in my knee and realize that my job, as the recipient of the pain, is to just "be" -- to allow these vying factions the time and space to accept each other (I know, I anthropomorphize it, don't I). Instead, I focus on the grayness of this November day, as gray as gray can be. November always delivers. It creates the perfect atmosphere for being with our loved ones, for hunkering in front of the fire, for raising a glass of cheer or praise. November is the perfect background for celebration and joy, for seeing the bare bones of things, for moving from the exterior to the interior. Some say gloomy. I cherish the gloom. It allows me the space to reignite those forces I will need for winter.
And so, two days from that great American holiday, I will put the butter on the counter to come to room temperature, measure out the flour, peel the apples, prepare the pumpkin filling -- between rests with an ice pack. I will respect the pain and let it flourish and then subside. I will keep on keeping on.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.
Monday, November 16, 2009
The pain has been leading my life...
On Tuesday, October 20, I entered the hospital, pale and anxious. They'd said, no makeup, so I complied and if you know me you'll know that I can look really pale without my precious tinted moisturizer. That was the beginning of a journey I have been trying to write about and haven't been able to until today.
Maybe its the relief brought on by the pain meds I took an hour ago. But now I feel more able to share my experience with you. No doubt some of you already have had a knee replacement so this may be familiar. Others may have had a replacement and experienced something totally different. All I know is what I went through.
When I arrived at the hospital with my husband that early fall day, although I was anxious I was also eager to get the operation over with and to finally get rid of the pain in my leg that had been dragging me down for over a year. An earlier operation in January provided no relief, so there I was, waiting for the big time, the whole knee replacement.
I don't remember much before the surgery, except that the surgeon had told me that post-operative, I would be in an enormous amount of pain. But there was no way he could adequately describe it. I vividly remember waking up with my husband beside me, unable to mentally compute the amount of pain I had. That was Tuesday. The next several days blurred together -- one enormous pain unit. They got me up and had me walk. It was so overwhelming that my mind couldn't absorb it. I held onto my walker, stunned that walking was expected of me. At times, I was so high on drugs that walking was easy, but that soon changed. One day I was given too many drugs and went into what is probably what junkies experience: total paranoia and the feeling of being held without my permission.
I believe it was the second or third day that I began to hallucinate. I didn't know it at the time but an accumulation of heavy medication finally triggered total confusion and suddenly I thought I was being held captive in a dark room, unable to move, my leg attached to a machine that kept it in continual motion. It was just about then that I decided, amid the confusion, to use the one thing available to me -- the phone. It was the only thing I could see or reach in the room, so I dialed 911. Within minutes my room was flooded with medical personnel.
Up to that point what I had experienced of the nursing staff had been harsh. Nurses who seemed fed up with a patient in pain - nurses who were overloaded with work. But my call to 911 changed that. Up to that point I think I was too heavily medicated or medicated with medicines that were making me unable to cooperate, putting me at a distinct disadvantage. But by day four, the clouds began to clear and I was actually walking with a walker and making some sense. I'll never know if I'd been overdosed or given inappropriate meds - all I know is that I never want that feeling again.
On the fifth day I was transferred to a local rehabilitation hospital. The change was a relief. In reality the rehab hospital is primarily a nursing home for people in the last stages of life or with nowhere to go. The hospital also devoted a small number of beds to rehab patients following surgery. The staff was kind and friendly - amazing! Even the physical therapy staff which met with me three times a day was friendly, except for the driving motto which was "You have to break 90 degrees." What they were talking about was the measurement of your knee while sitting. The first goal was 90 degrees then 115 or 120.
I shared a room with a wonderful woman who had had the same operation a week before me. She was fun and smart and light-hearted. I will always be grateful to her for helping me through that time. Her imitations of Sarah Palin became known across the floor and one patient laughingly "complained" because our laughter had prevented him from napping at 5pm the day before! He often visited our room and chuckled with us. He was a terribly handsome man - a stroke victim - who lived at the hospital and actually worked from his room. He struggled to walk and worked beside us in physical therapy, always commenting about the "girls."
As the days wore on,I found that waking each morning to the same gnawing pain became unbearable. I would sit quietly in my bed, stroke my knee and cry. Once that was over, I'd don my clothes and walker and make my way down to physical therapy four floors below. The morning tears became a part of my day, a kind of acknowledgement of what I was going through, but as the days went on, the tears were fewer and fewer and my desire to walk increased. So it was no accident that on my last three days at the hospital, I absorbed as much physical therapy as I could.
One of the most critical parts of my healing was the hands-on approach of several hospital staff members: there was Chantal, a nurse who modified my pain medication on a daily basis in order for me to operate at an optimal level, who redressed my leg and was concerned if it was too hot or too red; there was young Yvette, beautiful mother of 2 boys, who came each morning with our breakfast trays and smiled so widely you just had to get up and greet the day, who put my elastic stockings on for me because I wasn't able to bend my knee enough to do it myself, who did it so lovingly I felt like her child; there was older Yvette who worked the evening shift until 11, who made sure we had good dinners and lovingly wished us goodnight.
And so the weeks went by at the rehab hospital. I met some people there in my situation, but a lot of other people in more difficult situations. I still don't understand what enables some people to have a positive attitude and enormous drive to get well. I witnessed it time and again and I thought what a critical thing to contribute to a child's life - to teach that kind of positive attitude. It is always easier to give up, but the folks I met and sat with in physical therapy weren't about to do that. They were there in order to leave.
To those of you who have checked Over the Fence and found the October 15 blog, I apologize. I think the pain has been leading my life and I just wasn't able to overcome it enough to write. However, as I learned at the hospital, each day is a new day filled with the rare essence of possibility. Thank goodness.
Maybe its the relief brought on by the pain meds I took an hour ago. But now I feel more able to share my experience with you. No doubt some of you already have had a knee replacement so this may be familiar. Others may have had a replacement and experienced something totally different. All I know is what I went through.
When I arrived at the hospital with my husband that early fall day, although I was anxious I was also eager to get the operation over with and to finally get rid of the pain in my leg that had been dragging me down for over a year. An earlier operation in January provided no relief, so there I was, waiting for the big time, the whole knee replacement.
I don't remember much before the surgery, except that the surgeon had told me that post-operative, I would be in an enormous amount of pain. But there was no way he could adequately describe it. I vividly remember waking up with my husband beside me, unable to mentally compute the amount of pain I had. That was Tuesday. The next several days blurred together -- one enormous pain unit. They got me up and had me walk. It was so overwhelming that my mind couldn't absorb it. I held onto my walker, stunned that walking was expected of me. At times, I was so high on drugs that walking was easy, but that soon changed. One day I was given too many drugs and went into what is probably what junkies experience: total paranoia and the feeling of being held without my permission.
I believe it was the second or third day that I began to hallucinate. I didn't know it at the time but an accumulation of heavy medication finally triggered total confusion and suddenly I thought I was being held captive in a dark room, unable to move, my leg attached to a machine that kept it in continual motion. It was just about then that I decided, amid the confusion, to use the one thing available to me -- the phone. It was the only thing I could see or reach in the room, so I dialed 911. Within minutes my room was flooded with medical personnel.
Up to that point what I had experienced of the nursing staff had been harsh. Nurses who seemed fed up with a patient in pain - nurses who were overloaded with work. But my call to 911 changed that. Up to that point I think I was too heavily medicated or medicated with medicines that were making me unable to cooperate, putting me at a distinct disadvantage. But by day four, the clouds began to clear and I was actually walking with a walker and making some sense. I'll never know if I'd been overdosed or given inappropriate meds - all I know is that I never want that feeling again.
On the fifth day I was transferred to a local rehabilitation hospital. The change was a relief. In reality the rehab hospital is primarily a nursing home for people in the last stages of life or with nowhere to go. The hospital also devoted a small number of beds to rehab patients following surgery. The staff was kind and friendly - amazing! Even the physical therapy staff which met with me three times a day was friendly, except for the driving motto which was "You have to break 90 degrees." What they were talking about was the measurement of your knee while sitting. The first goal was 90 degrees then 115 or 120.
I shared a room with a wonderful woman who had had the same operation a week before me. She was fun and smart and light-hearted. I will always be grateful to her for helping me through that time. Her imitations of Sarah Palin became known across the floor and one patient laughingly "complained" because our laughter had prevented him from napping at 5pm the day before! He often visited our room and chuckled with us. He was a terribly handsome man - a stroke victim - who lived at the hospital and actually worked from his room. He struggled to walk and worked beside us in physical therapy, always commenting about the "girls."
As the days wore on,I found that waking each morning to the same gnawing pain became unbearable. I would sit quietly in my bed, stroke my knee and cry. Once that was over, I'd don my clothes and walker and make my way down to physical therapy four floors below. The morning tears became a part of my day, a kind of acknowledgement of what I was going through, but as the days went on, the tears were fewer and fewer and my desire to walk increased. So it was no accident that on my last three days at the hospital, I absorbed as much physical therapy as I could.
One of the most critical parts of my healing was the hands-on approach of several hospital staff members: there was Chantal, a nurse who modified my pain medication on a daily basis in order for me to operate at an optimal level, who redressed my leg and was concerned if it was too hot or too red; there was young Yvette, beautiful mother of 2 boys, who came each morning with our breakfast trays and smiled so widely you just had to get up and greet the day, who put my elastic stockings on for me because I wasn't able to bend my knee enough to do it myself, who did it so lovingly I felt like her child; there was older Yvette who worked the evening shift until 11, who made sure we had good dinners and lovingly wished us goodnight.
And so the weeks went by at the rehab hospital. I met some people there in my situation, but a lot of other people in more difficult situations. I still don't understand what enables some people to have a positive attitude and enormous drive to get well. I witnessed it time and again and I thought what a critical thing to contribute to a child's life - to teach that kind of positive attitude. It is always easier to give up, but the folks I met and sat with in physical therapy weren't about to do that. They were there in order to leave.
To those of you who have checked Over the Fence and found the October 15 blog, I apologize. I think the pain has been leading my life and I just wasn't able to overcome it enough to write. However, as I learned at the hospital, each day is a new day filled with the rare essence of possibility. Thank goodness.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Have you had yours today?
I've begun to think that coming of age is that moment when we realize the shortness of the years ahead, that moment when things begin to come together: a realistic appreciation for the world (and its craziness), the importance of rich friendships, the necessity for a greater focus on what we choose to do and the knowledge that providing advice and guidance to a younger generation is the value we can bring to the world. All of these things have become more important to me during these last several years. But the one item I've left out is having fun. That became clear this past weekend when we visited a friend in upstate Connecticut.
I don't know about you but my friends are more important to me now than ever. Sharing the experience of these later years brings us closer than before. We aren't distracted now by the raising of children and all the energy that needs to be spent doing that. This is a different time, a time that focuses far more on making oneself happy.
On Saturday my husband and I drove to Middletown, CT for a football game at Wesleyan University. One of our early dates over thirty years ago had been at the Wesleyan Homecoming game, and I found the nostalgia still palpable. But coming of age has changed the way my husband and I focused our time at the game. During the second half, for example, I wandered into the bookstore and spent the remainder of the game browsing and buying books, while he watched the second half. It was a great way to leave the cold and hard metal bleachers and to lose myself among the stacks. And it gave him the opportunity to take in the sport he loves. Perhaps we can call that accommodation but I tend to think of it as living parallel lives, each person getting the satisfaction they need and reconnecting at the next point.
From there we drove down to Essex where we met a dear friend of ours, a widow of three years now. Last time we visited, the loss of her husband still hung in the air. This time, her energy filled each room.
The first thing I noticed was a "good witch" sitting beside a sleek black pumpkin on her pristine kitchen counter. It was "just for fun" she said... a term I heard her use several times that afternoon. We talked a while and then traveled down to the main street in town where they were having a scarecrow contest. There were dozens of scarecrows, one on each of the lamp lights that lined the street: a telephone service man complete with tool belt climbing the spikes of the pole, a Madeleine with blue coat and yellow hat on a yellow ladder and on and on. It was splendid and we were simply charmed by the creativity of each one - about sixty in all.
We had dinner, talked about her latest painting projects and brought her up to date since we'd seen her last and, with a lighter heart, said goodbye.
On the way home I was exhilarated. This woman, eighty years of age, with the enthusiasm and spunk of a fifteen year old, had managed to show me that she was having fun, that the things she chose to do now were fun things, things which gave her enormous pleasure. You can do this, she had said, holding up one of her paintings, you'd be good at it. You don't have to be serious about it. Do it just for fun.
It was a true gift. I am a rather serious person, at least I go about doing serious projects and sometimes, when I find myself teetering on the edge of something that is fun, I pull away from it, uncomfortable that it might not be seen as something worthwhile. Fortunately, just by being who she is, my friend had changed my thinking.
The next morning, I used the stepladder to access a small closet above one of our fireplaces where I store seasonal decorations, and pulled out a very happy witch in a purple dress and black hat with orange trim. I hadn't taken out in years. I tied an orange ribbon around her waist and arranged her beside a black cat on a wide window sill. Last night my Granddaughter noticed it immediately and began to laugh. She understands fun.
Another day we'll talk about other aspects of aging, but today, it's all about fun. Have you had yours today?
Hope so.
Christina
I don't know about you but my friends are more important to me now than ever. Sharing the experience of these later years brings us closer than before. We aren't distracted now by the raising of children and all the energy that needs to be spent doing that. This is a different time, a time that focuses far more on making oneself happy.
On Saturday my husband and I drove to Middletown, CT for a football game at Wesleyan University. One of our early dates over thirty years ago had been at the Wesleyan Homecoming game, and I found the nostalgia still palpable. But coming of age has changed the way my husband and I focused our time at the game. During the second half, for example, I wandered into the bookstore and spent the remainder of the game browsing and buying books, while he watched the second half. It was a great way to leave the cold and hard metal bleachers and to lose myself among the stacks. And it gave him the opportunity to take in the sport he loves. Perhaps we can call that accommodation but I tend to think of it as living parallel lives, each person getting the satisfaction they need and reconnecting at the next point.
From there we drove down to Essex where we met a dear friend of ours, a widow of three years now. Last time we visited, the loss of her husband still hung in the air. This time, her energy filled each room.
The first thing I noticed was a "good witch" sitting beside a sleek black pumpkin on her pristine kitchen counter. It was "just for fun" she said... a term I heard her use several times that afternoon. We talked a while and then traveled down to the main street in town where they were having a scarecrow contest. There were dozens of scarecrows, one on each of the lamp lights that lined the street: a telephone service man complete with tool belt climbing the spikes of the pole, a Madeleine with blue coat and yellow hat on a yellow ladder and on and on. It was splendid and we were simply charmed by the creativity of each one - about sixty in all.
We had dinner, talked about her latest painting projects and brought her up to date since we'd seen her last and, with a lighter heart, said goodbye.
On the way home I was exhilarated. This woman, eighty years of age, with the enthusiasm and spunk of a fifteen year old, had managed to show me that she was having fun, that the things she chose to do now were fun things, things which gave her enormous pleasure. You can do this, she had said, holding up one of her paintings, you'd be good at it. You don't have to be serious about it. Do it just for fun.
It was a true gift. I am a rather serious person, at least I go about doing serious projects and sometimes, when I find myself teetering on the edge of something that is fun, I pull away from it, uncomfortable that it might not be seen as something worthwhile. Fortunately, just by being who she is, my friend had changed my thinking.
The next morning, I used the stepladder to access a small closet above one of our fireplaces where I store seasonal decorations, and pulled out a very happy witch in a purple dress and black hat with orange trim. I hadn't taken out in years. I tied an orange ribbon around her waist and arranged her beside a black cat on a wide window sill. Last night my Granddaughter noticed it immediately and began to laugh. She understands fun.
Another day we'll talk about other aspects of aging, but today, it's all about fun. Have you had yours today?
Hope so.
Christina
Monday, October 5, 2009
"...the first step shall be to lose the way." Galway Kinnell
To those of you who read this blog, I apologize for not having written earlier. I have spent the last week trying to give up control.
As we age, things happen to our bodies and its our job, my job in this case, to deal with it. The knee that has troubled me for three years is finally going to be replaced this month. I know, I know...knees are replaced every day...not such a big deal. Well it is a big deal when its happening to you.
How does this relate to control? Because after an operation on the same knee in January, six injections and months of physical therapy, I realized there was no other option but another operation. That was when I began to wrestle with the facts:, older people are the majority of knee recipients (definitely puts me in that category) ; the rehabilitation is a prolonged one (ugh, more work); its very painful (meds glorious meds). Then, when the surgeon told me I had to enter a rehab facility after the surgery, I lost it. All I could think of was the hospital my Mother had been in for eighteen months: the smell, the food, everything about it disgusted me, but it was supposedly the best of the choices we had at the time. That memory didn't help me to accept the inevitable.
So I have spent the last week trying to adjust, crying, talking to myself, alienating a lot of people simply because I couldn't give up the illusion that I had control over my future and over my body which is beginning to show its years. Now I realize my future depends on the surgeon, the caregivers and how hard and constant I am in rehab (talk about handing over control!) I understand now that the only control I have is to enter this experience knowing I will work hard as anything in rehab, that I will give it my all.
So in finally moving forward, I am allowing myself to lose the way, to give that responsibility to others and to take upon myself only what I can manage.
I have never forgotten that line from Galway's poem. I guess in the end, it is all about surrender.
I would love to hear from you.
Christina
As we age, things happen to our bodies and its our job, my job in this case, to deal with it. The knee that has troubled me for three years is finally going to be replaced this month. I know, I know...knees are replaced every day...not such a big deal. Well it is a big deal when its happening to you.
How does this relate to control? Because after an operation on the same knee in January, six injections and months of physical therapy, I realized there was no other option but another operation. That was when I began to wrestle with the facts:, older people are the majority of knee recipients (definitely puts me in that category) ; the rehabilitation is a prolonged one (ugh, more work); its very painful (meds glorious meds). Then, when the surgeon told me I had to enter a rehab facility after the surgery, I lost it. All I could think of was the hospital my Mother had been in for eighteen months: the smell, the food, everything about it disgusted me, but it was supposedly the best of the choices we had at the time. That memory didn't help me to accept the inevitable.
So I have spent the last week trying to adjust, crying, talking to myself, alienating a lot of people simply because I couldn't give up the illusion that I had control over my future and over my body which is beginning to show its years. Now I realize my future depends on the surgeon, the caregivers and how hard and constant I am in rehab (talk about handing over control!) I understand now that the only control I have is to enter this experience knowing I will work hard as anything in rehab, that I will give it my all.
So in finally moving forward, I am allowing myself to lose the way, to give that responsibility to others and to take upon myself only what I can manage.
I have never forgotten that line from Galway's poem. I guess in the end, it is all about surrender.
I would love to hear from you.
Christina
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