I just read two chapters of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to the kids. We haven't had the habit of reading all together at bedtime, perhaps because bedtime is not usually my duty. LWW might be a little over G's head, but she will get some of it. A seems to be following so far. I'm sure it will be years and years before they get the religious implications of it, but by then, hopefully, they will know it well and have read all of the books. I loved those books when I was little, maybe in third or fourth grade. I LOVED them. I refused to read the last one because then they would be done, and I wanted to know it was out there still waiting to be read, something to look forward to and to save for when I really needed it. Then I never read it. I guess I never got desperate enough, or else when I did finally come against some hard places, I didn't think to escape them in a children's book, even the best of children's books. Finally, when I was teaching and in my late 20s, one of my senior creative writing students, not a terribly academic person, was raving about the series and we found common ground in Narnia. I told him about how madly I loved the books and reread them but never finished the series. The next day he showed up with a copy of The Last Battle. I went home and, instead of doing my work, read the whole book. Amazing. C. S. Lewis is unparalleled. I was sobbing and rejoicing and my heart was beating and at the same time I was completely at peace and thinking, "Yes. This is how it is: awful and wonderful, terrifying and yet inevitable." Oh, I hope my children can someday love books as I do. It's far too soon to tell though. A is a good reader, but he is still quite young. I believe his decoding skills have probably outgrown his other literary abilities. So it was a joy to visit Narnia together for the first time.
The ice encrusted world was very beautiful this morning when the sun came out. Even this afternoon the tall grass in the praire preserve by my house was still all coated in ice and sparkled in the setting sun. If one is not trying to train for a long long race, like the Boston Marathon, for instance, there are few things as magically beautiful as world entirely encased in ice but also melting in the sunlight.
All of this is to say that today turned out so very much better than expected. My overly-vivid and hard-to-shake dream this morning was about getting my foot diagnosis and finding out other terrible things that had nothing to do with my foot, like that I had breast cancer. I felt terrified all morning, even though I knew rationally that in real life things do not happen that way. Then, on the way to G's gymnastics, I decided to take another route. I keep getting caught on the wrong side of the train tracks when the Monday morning train comes through. I was ahead of schdule, which is hard for me because I like to keep doing things until the last minute, so I took a slightly longer route that didn't cross the tracks. As I was approaching the park district building I got pulled over for speeding!! I wasn't even particularly in a hurry. I was going 41, apparently, which doesn't feel fast to me. So the truth was that I just wasn't watching my speed. I also would have guessed that the speed limit there was 35, but it's 30. And then I couldn't find my insurance card. The one in my car had expired. Nice. Good morning. Perhaps it all began to turn when the officer only gave me a warning and a smile. (Appreciate your public servants people!! I want this man patrolling my neighborhood. I do not want people speeding down my street either. And to be reminded in kindness to do right, well, sign me up to pay taxes. Seriously. May the man's family all be safe and sheltered and fed and free to also become police officers.)
And then I had my doctor's appointment. Who ever thought being told I would need surgery would be such good news? But it feels like it. The surgery will require anesthesia and so is not something to be taken lightly. Never take lightly the suggestion that another human should use chemicals to knock you unconscious and then cut into your flesh, past nerves and blood vessels and other important things. But as far as surgeries go, this one is not bad. It will require some healing of the wound but not crutches. It will require wearing a boot for a couple of weeks and a couple more weeks of going easy on the feet, and then I can start getting back to my running, the love of my life. Two months from now, I might be able to run again. Without terrible pain. It's wonderful news!!
I guess it's all relative. When I was planning to give away a kidney, the prospect of not running for six to eight weeks was almost as much sacrifice for me as the removal of the actual organ. (Oh yeah, and I am terrified of surgery and anesthesia.) Now, six to eight weeks is nothing compared to the months and years of injuries I've been dealing with. The surgery thing is still scary, but having a stray fragment removed from a foot joint is just not quite the ordeal that having a vital organ removed would be. And then more perspective arrived. I had talked to Cassie last night, and it seemed likely that she had a really really really bad condition that was going to plague her the rest of her life. She is down to 93 lbs and cannot eat anything. No meat, no fat, no dairy, no fiber. There's nothing left. The treatment for what they thought she had was more drugs that would affect her current drugs. Ugh. When she called today, I was thinking I had such good news to tell her about my foot, but what is that compared to her struggles? And then she had really really great news. She has a bacterial infection that is often lethal and somehow wasn't this time, and they can give her antibiotics for it and she'll be better in a couple of weeks!! Woah. So in comparison, saying "Yay! I need surgery!" seemed less exciting, but we are still both happy for each other. Then we laughed that we should be so rejoicing to hear that we have infections and surgeries. But it's all a matter of perspective.
A day of badness turned all good. I like when that happens.
I guess it's all relative. When I was planning to give away a kidney, the prospect of not running for six to eight weeks was almost as much sacrifice for me as the removal of the actual organ. (Oh yeah, and I am terrified of surgery and anesthesia.) Now, six to eight weeks is nothing compared to the months and years of injuries I've been dealing with. The surgery thing is still scary, but having a stray fragment removed from a foot joint is just not quite the ordeal that having a vital organ removed would be. And then more perspective arrived. I had talked to Cassie last night, and it seemed likely that she had a really really really bad condition that was going to plague her the rest of her life. She is down to 93 lbs and cannot eat anything. No meat, no fat, no dairy, no fiber. There's nothing left. The treatment for what they thought she had was more drugs that would affect her current drugs. Ugh. When she called today, I was thinking I had such good news to tell her about my foot, but what is that compared to her struggles? And then she had really really great news. She has a bacterial infection that is often lethal and somehow wasn't this time, and they can give her antibiotics for it and she'll be better in a couple of weeks!! Woah. So in comparison, saying "Yay! I need surgery!" seemed less exciting, but we are still both happy for each other. Then we laughed that we should be so rejoicing to hear that we have infections and surgeries. But it's all a matter of perspective.
A day of badness turned all good. I like when that happens.
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