I have been thinking a lot lately about my physical body. Mostly I‘ve been drawn to the muscle aches, the noisy joints and the areas that feel heavy when I wake from sleeping for almost 12 hours a night. My body is a veritable symphony of sounds, stories and complaints.
I thought that my diagnosis of Fibromyalgia along with CFIDS, and the resulting pain meds, all my troubles would be over. I had thought that pain was all that held me back. But then the fatigue portion kicked into first place. And despite what my Rheumatologist thinks, I am not just tired because I am not exercising. I was exercising just fine up to the fibro-roulette routine that subjected me to a host of differing mind numbing, fog inducing, homicidal raging meds. Cymblata stops the raging burning pain all over my body, thank the gods. But the process that brought me to this point ruined most of my nurturing routines.
So now I begin the process of rebuilding my radical self-care from the ground up. I have done this so many times before, I should be used to it by now – but it is still teary eyed difficult and it still makes me want to run and hide. And it also does not help to be fighting off a nasty cold just weeks after a stomach turning flu and let's not forget the winter to rule them all.
So I have restarted my at home yoga practice, again. I am hoping next week that it will get warm enough for me to walk, again. It is awfully hard to walk when all your lower joints go pop and click with each step. I feel like I need to add a new line to the Wizard of Oz saying -- y’know, “… a heart, a brain, a home, the nerve … some knee cartilage!”
Yikes! I feel way too frail to be only 54 years old. I keep telling myself, that the strength, flexibility and endurance I built up last year will make it easier this time. And I already can tell it is true. My yoga practice still feels good; I just need to rebuild it back up slowly to the spring/summer levels of almost daily practice. And who knows, I may be back to multiple walks a week by April.
I just have to be present with the now. And that is the most difficult thing for me. Because “right now” feels very frail, tentative and sleepy to me. So I am left at giving myself pep talks, and tricking myself into seeing the bright side -- which on these dark days is a real stretch.
So today, after a massage, a chiro appointment, a hair cut, a PO Box check, an ATM deposit and a grocery run, all I could do was write this rant before delving into my back to back Assisi conference calls. I only got 6 hours sleep last night, half of what I apparently needed every other day this week. I will probably have the same amount of sleep tonight as well. Sigh …
I know loads of other people who are having a way harder time than I am, but damn … I sure could use some sun sometime soon. Can someone put an order in for me? Thanks.
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".