Human frailty

Frailty.  I never saw myself as fragile in any sense of the word.  This year, however, I seem to have recovered from a lateral meniscus cartilage tear in my left knee accompanied by a partial tear to my Achilles tendon.  I have had two or three weeks pretty much out of action with a chest infection, and recently I've had a diagnosis of Labyrinthitis.

It's been a hard decade for injuries.  It all seemed to start with IT Band damage in 2007 which still flares up from time to time, but there's also been a shoulder injury, a diagnosis of TMJ, and an episode of Trigeminal nerve disorder in recent years.  Before that, the only things which ever got damaged were broken little fingers and a broken nose. 

I'm not a patient patient.  I always want to get up and do things before I possibly should.  I'll doggedly push myself unless given clear warnings about bad consequences if I over do it.  I was really really well behaved and looking to long term future when I tore the cartilage.  Followed physio instruction to the absolute letter and made a full recovery. 

This time, though with the lovely toppling Labyrinthitis I have got it into my head that my brain simply needs to recalibrate, and the best way of doing that is to go out there and behave normally. Walk.  That kind of thing.  Which is what I did today, meandered with the gait of a squiffy drunkard along the footpaths going from home.  Pondered as I did so about how thankfully different I am to my dad.  As soon as anything went wrong with Dad he gave up.  I don't exaggerate.  His attitude was to think about what he couldn't do, not what he could do.  If he thought that in the future something would no longer be possible he simply stopped.  Then and there, said if I can't do that in the future there's no point doing it now.  He was as stubborn as I am.  But me, I like to at least try. 

So today's walk, I bimbled along, thinking about the simple experience of walking, the feeling of loss of focus, the odd sensations brought about by the lack of balance combined with my naturally bobbing gait as I walk.  And I thought, you know what, this is not so bad.  If this is the way walking is to be for the next few days or weeks I can cope with this.  If walking were always like this, would that be a game stopper?  No, I don't think it would be.  Imagine if I knew no different, if walking had always been this way, would I be concerned.  No, I'd have adapted, and that's what I can do now, accept, relax, adapt.  Could I climb Ben Nevis like this; I don't know but maybe.  Get in.

Remembering Rhayader

I have a Wales Mountain Biking guide open in front of me.  As ever, planning.  As I searched for something perhaps North Walesish, my eyes glanced over the mid Wales section, and there it was, Rhayader, and with that came memories.

Rhayader came in the middle of a solo holiday.  My first real go it alone experience, my first attempt to fill my leisure time with solitary activity.  It's hard to describe why or how this came about or to pull the significance into words.  I had never known it was possible to be contented, or perhaps even happy in an experience which wasn't shared with other folk.  Yet somehow, in that summer, there I was, giving it a go on a very very safe and small level.  Did I choose to plunge in with an experience in a foreign place where they speak no English?  No.  Did I choose to try death defying soloing or cliff diving?  No.  It was enough of an emotional risk taking this time out, true time out of everything, alone.

I don't even remember it being a conscious decision, just something I drifted into because it seemed the natural and obvious thing to do.  Not really a woman against world train of thought involved.  Yet, somehow, with the clarity that the passing of another half decade brings, it did feel a little that way.  A small, self contained individual, armed with a car, a tent, a wetsuit, a bike, a camping chair and a box of wine.  I did feel small.  Looking back, I still see myself back then as small, but as astonishingly self contained.

I remember riding the green lanes, arriving with hesitation at an unwelcoming farm with no clear view of the ongoing bridleway.  An encounter with the farmer, whose concern was his moving herd of cattle bearing down on me from the trail.  A conversation, a wait, a sense of surreal as the cows passed me by.  Then up and up and up until the broad trail became virtually nothing and then became boulders through a stream.  Up to the road, a short spell of tarmac and off into the greenery, where there was nobody, not a soul, a whole load of nothing for miles and miles and miles.  An unexpected ford making me giggle as I desperately pedalled up to my axles in water, hoping and praying that I would make it through to the end still in the saddle.  Some kinds of wet are simply not necessary on the bike.  There were village tea rooms and there was cake and it was a wonderful day spent just being me.  And the bike.  This is us at the bewildering where did the path go moment.  It went across ...



Since the tame going it alone holiday, there  have of course been more and more times when I've gone it alone.  Suilven in Scotland, two days hiking, carrying my everything on my back and spending a night in a bothy with just the bothy mouse for company and the sounds of rutting stags throughout the night.  Six weeks in New Zealand including a 5 day hike along the coast, again my world in a huge purple pack.  There has been France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg.

I wrote about this ride here, on this blog, back in July 2011.  Memory has re-written the ride, as it re-writes so many things.  History is rounded, curved, completed by the present and by the future.  Experience paints it different colours and brings with it new meaning.  But that first moment of brave, of discovery of possibility, that yes, it can be not only done, but done with smiles and laughter.  That won't be equaled.  There'll always be Rhayader.  And certainly if 2005 felt like an ending, 2011 felt like hope.

Not so tough

Is it me or am I getting injured and getting sick a lot more than I used to?  I feel a lot more intimately acquainted with my sofa than ever before in my life.  What happened?  Am I magnifying it or imagining it.

An odd coincidence seems to be the getting injured or sick just when I'm on a tight deadline for an Open Uni assignment, thus freeing up lots of reading time.  On the sofa.  I'm not even sure I like the sofa very much any more. Or that I ever really did. 

The previous sofa was an odd one.  Bought as a sofa bed on the recommendation of my Gran.  A Jaybe I think it was.  One of those which said you could use it as a regular bed for six months, so good was the mattress.  I think I (we, I guess) did use it for a good number of weeks while the house was being turned tipsy turvy as we tried to make various rooms habitable.  My bed came with me but in pieces. 

I bought this one because, somehow the previous one made me uncomfortable.  Mentally, more than physically.  I guess I just didn't see the point.  I now live in a world of terracotta mismatch with a sofa I cannot lie on because of the size of my room.  The main selling point as far as I remember were arms that I could rest my mug of tea on.

Sometimes these things are important.  Tea, many cups of it being drunk  here.  Does that make it OK?

Today was brought to you by Billy Joel because you know you're not so tough ...