Hey loves...picking up over here with a blog post I wrote mid summer 2019 but did not publish it.
Funny how it applies to right now, our life in a pandemic. At the time, Mike and I were staying in my little studio, working on our 1860's row home. I was in the middle of recovering from a concussion.
What stays with me as I re-read this is that I was aware, that as crazy as it all seemed, these would be sweet times looking back on it. There was a lovely simplicity with living with so much less. We had no modern conveniences, but we had the outdoors, fresh coffee, running water and music. We slept so deeply.
We are all right there again. Together. All of us. The whole world. Stopped. Waiting. Healing.
We will look back at this time when we all stayed in, made meals with what we had, did puzzles, and checked in on our neighbors.
This morning I woke up with just enough coffee for one cup. There was a light rain falling and the sky was overcast. When you know something is limited, you savor it. That single cup of coffee tasted so very good.
Spring and summer have been like that single cup of coffee and I am savoring these days.
As we work to restore an 1860's row house in Lambertville, NJ, we are in that "middle space" as we have been before...that waiting space. Being there is not always comfortable, but I know from past experience, there is a sweetness here that we will remember. It will be that time we look back on when things were more fluid, moving and changing with each day and we adjusted gracefully to the shifts.
It will be that period of time when we were more adaptable than usual.
It is a time of living with so much less. Less clothes. Less television. Less inside space.
I love the picture above. Mike putting a chair on the studio bed so he can get into the closet. This is the image I woke up to one summer morning. It sums up this time for us.
And for me, there has been so much less since February, when I realized I had a concussion from a car accident the month before. I was in a car accident in January. I could feel it on my left side instantly but thought a few chiropractic visits would fix it. A month later, I saw double and the headaches became very intense. The winter was filled with eye pads and naps in a dark room.
There have been lots of different therapies used in my healing, which is ongoing. I have five or six appointments a week. Healing is indeed a full time job.
Some things I love deeply have stopped for a long while... yoga, reading and movie theaters to name a few.
There are always gifts too. For one, when you don't feel well for a period of time you develop boundaries very quickly. And I thank the universe daily for audio books and podcasts.
My neurologist, who I love, told me he would like to put my head in a cast...as I look the same and I sound the same, but when you have a brain injury, you are not the same. At least, with the head cast people would know.
I am learning that my concussion has a delayed reaction time. Basic activities like sweeping have a consequence. So you feel fine as you do it and then the next day will hit a day a constant and mean headache comes. Then I am back to the eye pad, dark room and long naps. There is no up and down eye movement for me right now.
When you are injured and your daily to do list gets put away as you heal, you see the world differently. Where I used to speed up, I slow down. I give myself a pass.
Yes. I am still giving myself a pass over here. I hope you are too. When nothing is normal, be especially gentle with yourself.
xo.