I found this blooming in the ditch this morning totally out of season.
Today it is seven days counting the day of my surgery. The incision is still ugly but healing, the bruise is fading, what’s left turning yellow and brown. Yesterday I picked up the rest of the debris, all small stuff, in the little backyard adding to the big pile there. This morning when I let the dog out I cleared the front yard making a small pile on edge of the street. The county is supposed to be coming around and picking up storm debris starting tomorrow. I’d like to move some of the piles around here to the street before they get to our neighborhood but it probably won’t happen because I’m still being very conservative in my activity. Maybe the small one on the side yard, maybe the small one in the front yard but the monster in the side yard and the one in the little backyard will take much longer to move. And of course, the big backyard hasn’t even been touched. I tried to torch the burn pile yesterday but with all the rain we’ve been having it wouldn’t catch. Maybe Monday as long as the rain holds off. Unfortunately, it’s forecast to rain every day next week.
Yesterday Marc drove me down the county road I take to get to the grocery store. There were five enormous, 50 year old at least, pecan trees down, keeled over uprooted, just on that short stretch alone. I’m still astounded by how much damage that category 1 hurricane did.
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My sister’s sudden and completely unexpected death had a profound impact on me beyond just the loss of my best friend and main companion other than my husband. It really just took the wind out of my sails and, in retrospect, made me hyper sensitive to my own mortality which I see as the core cause of all the medical stuff I’ve been going through the last two months. Instead of recognizing an intense afib episode for what it was, I basically panicked which sent me to the ER which led to all those tests which led to the false aneurysm diagnosis and everything that followed that. Really, the only procedure I needed was the afib ablation because the medication was no longer controlling it. How many years have I taken off my life as a result of two months of panic, all that anesthesia?
It impacted me in other ways too. In my grief I lost all motivation to do anything creative. The broken water pipe at the studio has been fixed but I still haven’t bothered to get Marc to go over and turn the valve back on (I can’t get it to budge), I put away my colored pencils, sketchbook, and watercolors. I have the fabric to make a new skirt but haven’t gotten my sewing machine out, I bought all those new crystals and still haven’t hung them. Gardening, yoga, and SHARE have been my only activities and it’s too hot to garden now even if I wasn’t still recovering from all those procedures.
Well, one of my readers, David, has, unintentionally I’m sure, kicked me in the butt. I’m going to get my colored pencils, sketchbook, and watercolors and paper out and put them on the small work table. That may be as far as I get today but it’s a step forward.
Tuesday my niece and her husband will arrive. Our plan is to go through Pam’s old house and start clearing away some of the stuff. Nothing has been gotten rid of at this point and it’s time to pack up her life. The furniture will stay except for two pieces that have no real value, just taking up space in an overcrowded house. Next Saturday all the family will gather once again to scatter her ashes as she requested and when that is done I think I will be able to finally let her go. I need to start making again.
