Pain

Pain in the Neck

Posted by

0

I’m standing in the changing room looking like a preschool craft of marshmallows and toothpicks. Stiff around the joints and ensconced in a white fluffy robe that looks comfy enough to eat.

It all started Saturday morning when I made a less than risky turn in my bed and found my neck was ablaze with pain. It began near the top of my spine and shot down to my elbows so that I moved with the grace and flexibility of an uncooked spaghetti noodle. And I kept forgetting.

“Mom, can we-”
“Gah! Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Babe, look at this hilarious-”
“Uh! What. Just, what is it?”

Trying to relax on the porch with a cup of coffee and never finding a comfortable position, I decided to call for a massage. That, my friends, is how I became part S’more, in a locker room, at a spa.

As stiff as my neck, I slid on the sandals they handed me and waited in the common area. It was all dark ambiance and artificial waterfalls and weird teas.
“Can I get you something hot to drink? Our signature recipe is delicious.” said the receptionist.
Yes and please sear it against my hairline. “That’d be great, thank you.”

I held the white ceramic mug between both hands and likely looked ridiculous trying to sit back.

“Brittany?”
Help. Me. “Hi.”

She introduced herself and her oils while I tried to explain the mess going on in my muscles. You know that movie Weekend at Bernie’s? I want to walk out of here like the dead guy.

I let the wave sounds wash over me and the vanilla aromatherapy soothe. She pressed her elbows to my back and I wasn’t sure if I was going to laugh or cry or pee myself. It was gloriously painful. And I was grateful she couldn’t see my face cringe.

Now weekend has weaved into the week, my desperate message to the chiropractor has been returned, and I’ve learned it’s likely a nasty virus I’m fighting. I’m still brittle around the edges and certain moves require a tenacious patience. But the big takeaway here is I will never, ever again, ever take for granted being able to look both ways at a crosswalk or down while I shave my underarms. Like, ever.

A Breeze Banging Blinds

Posted by

0

‘Tis the season for sunburns and skinned knees. For crickets harmonizing in the dark and ceiling fans that keep warm air circulating. It’s time for ice cubes crackling in tea and grills that sizzle with the searing of meats. Bring on pasta salad, watermelons shaped like baskets, and volleyball nets in backyards.

My eyes are tired. I am tired. The night settles into a quiet rest, every last scary thought cast into oblivion with my mother’s caress across their forehead. A breeze hits me through blinds that bang easy on the sill. I let down because all three of them are finally down, and I escape from lengthy lists of what I will need to attend or pack on these last few days of school. I forget about the laundry backed into a corner of my bedroom, ignore the toothpaste splattered mirrors, and let the cool wash over my skin the way water showers my Impatiens.

But somewhere in the midst of all this easing there is aching. A nephew who will have a funeral. A marriage withered and dry, cracked on the edges with pain that doesn’t give. A parent with a diagnosis that guts a family. The quiet eases nothing. The emptiness, a beating of the soul. A summer’s breeze, razorblades, because it feels that nothing is as it should be and everything has changed.

“What if we have it all wrong? This question recently came from a friend. “What if danger, heart-wrenching circumstances, sorrow is our means to life?”

When the morning is already hot on my arms, I pinch buds of Petunias, wrangle them loose from their stem so that many more will come. When snow has stopped its angry tantrum and frigid temperatures dissipate, chive sprouts return greener and fuller. Only when a tree’s lowest branches are sawed free can the rest of it reach high.

Come through the screen, night air. Remind us that winter doesn’t last and hope comes after death.

 

Dirt Under My Nails

Posted by

0

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C. S. Lewis

Water cascades down stone tiles, there is certificate upon certificate in frames on the walls, and a background of piano keys that do nothing to stir my soul. I’m waiting on a leather sofa across from a wooden screen. It looks Asian, but I’m as unsure of this as I am of the knee-high boots and yoga pants I’m wearing. The assistant is doing a checklist of all my supplements, poking her pinky around an iPad. I’m immediately defensive because I know how I’ve been slacking.
“Well, I take fish oil every other day.” She reminds me about the benefit of a daily intake.
Yes, I know. Should I take this while my oldest snarls her acidic tongue at her brother or when my youngest begins to scream like someone has pierced her with an arrow? Just wondering, because really, I’m grateful to be out of bed.

Some days I can’t bear. Period. There is no fill in the blank because it’s all of it, that is overwhelming me. The fake waterfalls, the operator music. This forced ambiance and I, we’re not clicking. I want the casket because everyone standing at my gravesite makes me feel heavy. Impenetrable? Yes, please. I think I won’t survive unless I lock up my heart.

I’m angry? Oh. I’m angry. Why?

My pen keeps going on the page, words are coming like crumbs dropped along a path so I find my way. I follow them.

Longing. I’m longing for something. Probably connection. It’s always that. And security. A place to let down. Somewhere that is safe, and all this Fung Shoo isn’t it. Give me the smell of cattle, move my neighbors no less than two acres on all sides, let my face feel the sun through a labyrinth of branches and the grass tangle itself in my hair until my arms grow goose bumps from the shifting winds of storm fronts. Give me country, where I most often hear the voice of God.

“Do something that makes you out of breath. Run up the stairs instead of walk, dance with your kids,” my doctor tells me. “Punch the mattress.”
This, gets my attention. I’ve learned recently that out of the three types of reactions: flight, fight, or freeze, I fight. I’m a fighter. So the coffin isn’t actually going to work for me. Maybe for a quick nap, because who can’t use one of those from time to time? And after a little rest I’ll kick back the lid, dig into the dirt until my fingernails are caked, and climb to all the relationships who love me enough to do death with me, to vulnerability.

Gloom and doom, we have some business to do.

 

 

I’m a Buffoon

Posted by

0

All I could think in those moments when my name would be written on the board was, my cheeks are saying more than I ever would out loud. I hate that scene from grade school when I would be called out. There was no dunce hat on a stool in the corner, but it sure felt like it. My friends, my crushes, my nemeses were all inwardly raising their eyebrows at the mention of those syllables my parents gave me at birth. It’s her, I imagine them uttering. Gah! The shame.

The same flush happens every time I stumble upon one of those lists. You know the ones: 100 things to never say to a bearded woman; 15 things to avoid saying to someone who’s just been bit by rabid monkeys; 5 ways to encourage a friend who has decided to live solitary in the woods for two years. All right, not quite like those but I think you get the picture. Every time I see one I fight the urge to raise my hand in a guilty plea of confession. It’s me, this list is going to expose all my ignorance.

Yep, nearly 10 times out of 10 I’ve said the wrong thing to a hurting person. If I haven’t said it, I’ve thought it. My only saving grace is that there might be more on the list I haven’t said than ones I have. I scour through the items doing a mental check.

I said that.
And that, but that one isn’t so bad. I mean, it’s true.
Oh. Oh dear. This one’s bad. I need to make a call, and offer my firstborn.

But can I take a second for us nincompoops? I get it. I’ve been through enough crises and traumatic events to know how grating the wrong comment, the total missed mark, the insensitive feels. It sucks. And I also know that on the other side, in the space where we come eye to eye with you who are in knee-buckling pain, we desperately want to go there with you. We want to see it, feel it, and come alongside you in it, even though it’s like we’re groping for a light switch in a dark room. With grief that can mold into different shapes at any given moment, with processes that are never alike in two people, it’s difficult to know what the exact right thing is at the exact right time.

I had a friend who was depressed. I’ve been there and I thought I knew what I was doing with her. I texted, invited, said I’d be there to talk it out because that’s what I have needed in those situations. More people. She, was the opposite. I actually Googled: How to Love Someone Who’s Depressed. It turns out she needed blankets wrapped over her head and groceries in her pantry without ever stepping into a store. She needed quiet and sleep and presence without any demand of words she didn’t have. 

So know, we buffoons who you want to slap, we care.

And at least we’re saying something, even if it’s the wrong thing. Teach us the language. Plus, you never know when someone might have great shaving tips.