Crutches

Nine weeks ago, I had surgery to correct a deformity of my left tibia and take some pressure off my worn-out, arthritic ankle.

This piece is a hotchpotch of jottings from the first few weeks of post-op recovery. In those early days, I found the restricted pace of life unexpectedly satisfying. Soothing, almost.

I am still on crutches, still not quite able to drive, and am feeling anxious and frustrated having just been told that a problematic pin needs to be removed – necessitating further surgery in a few weeks’ time.

Re-reading these snippets has been a reminder of the soft contentment of surrender to only what-is, so I hope you might find some softness in them too.

…

"Breathe!" the physio reminds me, as I shakily ascend the stairs in my Jerry Mouse nightie, crutches in one hand, gripping the stair rail in the other, gritting my teeth against the throbbing. My leg feels a very long way away from me, like a hobnailed boot on the end of a pole. They swooped upon me, the physio and his very young assistant (whose tone of voice betrays how very old she judges me to be), just after I had been foraging in my left nostril and extracted a deliciously squidgy and strangely captivating bogey. I know that’s gross, but excavating the nasal passages is immensely satisfying, no?

…

Where does our higher consciousness go, during surgery? A question that has been pecking away at me. It's so vanishingly thin, the sliver of dark wedged between the anaesthetist's smile and the lights of the recovery room. The edges of consciousness smoulder away, like paper held over a flame, then – poof! Three-point-five hours of... nothing. Nada. Rien du tout. Exactly the same amount of time that passed before our conception, and will continue to pass after we are gone.

I’ve heard tell of consciousness breaking loose while the brain is stilled, cavorting in the cosmos.

If my higher self was off partying in the ether, it would’ve been nice if it had brought me back some juicy gossip. Or at least some leftover cake wrapped in a greasy napkin.

…

Like a stamped-on blancmange, my age has been… deconstructed.

I feel twelve years old again. Ish. Twelvish me has moved in with my fifteen-year-old son, who has become my carer.

This perturbs me. I am supposed to be looking after him. Yet he swaggers into the role, booming "You're slightly more than welcome!" as I thank him, apologise, thank him again.

Perhaps he is ready, after all.

His maturity, his empathy, his insight never cease to surprise me.

Me and my boy. It’s going to be alright.

…

There is a time for being present and a time for being absent, for leaving the body to do its housekeeping while the mind goes on an excursion. Even if it travels by 5G. Phones get a bad rap, but they do, of course, connect as well as disconnect.

Thanks to mine, I am more engaged with the wider world than usual. Reading more news stories, tracing googly, gossipy trails of curiosity. Mindfulness is brilliant. But so is Michael Sheen, it seems. The Internet assures me he is a marvellous human being with a charitable heart. Watching clips of him being admirable passes the time quite nicely, thank you (and yes I wrote that in a Welsh accent).

…

From my armchair, I see all the flustered thoughts, rigid facts, sticky habits, squeezing and pushing, commuters on the underground at rush hour, jostling, shuffling, breathing in, making room for one more notion amidst the commotion.

Oh! the longing to open the doors and shove them all out at the next stop.

Well, it seems I have.

Barely a coherent thought remains. The very notion of studying repels me. I crave only gentleness, the sun-drenched distraction of ‘The Durrells’ on Netflix, the triangles, squares, rectangles and thin lines that make up the view from my living room window – grey roof tiles, modern bricks, knackered fence panels, telephone wires, taupe telegraph pole.

This weather, it greywashes everything, like a jar of dirty water used to swirl paint brushes.

…

I am spending much time staring into space. Dislocated gaze, a lid slipped sideways off a jar. Objects are a background visual hum, eyes rest on the space which is, surely, the only real thing? The material world exists only in our perception of it. So they say.

For so long, I have felt the seductive space beckoning, catching at my sleeve, a whispered prayer for an empty head.

How pleasant, to not attach meaning to anything. To just let each thought be a thought, each thing be a thing, each action a means to an end.

…

Perhaps this is what it would feel like to live in one of those 1980s video games, batting a splodge back, and forth, back, and forth.

Curious, isn't it, how a thing so basic can be so absorbing.

Like the lengthy bedtime washing routine, perched on the rim of the bathtub.

Cleaning my skin, limb by limb, has acquired a ritual quality.

And have you ever noticed just how gorgeous a rough, wet flannel feels against the soles of the feet? Oooh, it’s lovely!!

That bit in the Bible when Jesus has his feet anointed and cleansed suddenly makes sense to me. As a child, I recall asking my Mum why washing someone’s feet was so special, for it seemed a very trivial and slightly disgusting thing to me.

But what a soft thrill it is, to tend to one’s feet!

…

The mechanics can, of course, be more enchanting than the machine that conceals them.

I am everso pleased with this flash of insight!

Like when you visit a science museum, and there are lots of… things, with moving parts, all spinning, sliding, dropping, lifting, clunking, clicking, whirring, hissing, swooshing. Innards of ships, steam engines, pumps, cogs, pistons. Mesmerising.

Well, my halting progress around the house on crutches is hardly a thing of beauty, but each step pleases me nonetheless, because it requires my full care and attention. Each step a diagram of its constituent parts.

…

Ah, the pleasure of discovering that a not-too-full cup of not-too-hot coffee can be conveyed from kitchen to living room on a crutch handle, that cake and biscuits and suchlike can be carried in a bag!

How little, really, is necessary in order to feel at ease. For now. How basic the ingredients of a fulfilled day.

 …

My affection for my crutches has surprised me. I find myself hugging them while I sit, resting my chin on them, as if they were the shoulder of a lover. Nibbling cake, my drooling dog poised for crumbs, I am also struck by the fondness I feel towards myself. By my closeness to my own body.

In the normal pace of life, we tend to move somewhat ahead of our own physical self, like in cartoons, when a character runs from standing and the haze of them is, briefly, left behind.

This softness towards myself feels childlike. Memories of time spent alone, padding myself against the world. Imagination was not the only solace.

There was also this something-else, this reverence for my soft flesh and its contents.

Can it be that, as adults, we forget how to adore ourselves in this uncomplicated way?

…

I had plans, for this time of enforced rest. What a gift it could be, a month of no work, all the learning and progression and enlightenment... In my mind, a ribbon of self-enrichment was wrapped around it. The gift turns out to be an empty box.

A big, beautiful, empty box. There’s a reason why cats and children love them, right?

I have not turned mine into a car, a boat, a chariot. I have simply sat in it.

…

If there is one thing I have discovered, it is this: that a thing accepted for the thing it is, is no less of a thing as a result.

Does that make any sense at all? Oh dear… elegant expression eludes me.

What I am trying to say is: I strongly suspect that one pathway to magic might be to sink fully, completely, into the Thing, until it becomes like a hole in the sand, grains falling in and in on themselves, until the hole is actually turned inside out. Except you wouldn’t know, to look at it.

We think magic is slippery, elusive, but it isn’t: it’s right there. It is our attention that is slippery. Not the magic.

…

Today, I sewed up the tear in the seam of my duvet cover. The stitches are large, meandering, ungainly, impatient. Great loping strides across the fabric. This lackadaisical attitude to sewing is at odds with my often-maniacal neatness around the house.

Why can’t I make my stitches tiny, orderly, a marching line of ants? Perhaps we only keep things neat in order to create space. Uncluttered, undemanding space.

How might it be to stretch into the space, lean back, and let it hold us… With all my movements slowed, I swear I can sense the space, sometimes, cupping me.

Great, big, gappy, wonky, brown stitches. The thread doesn’t even match the duvet. I am happy to note that I don’t care. I’d even say the effect is quite charming!

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