I don’t normally blog about my life. But there are points of time when your life intercedes your art or your writing

Six months ago, I had my second knee surgery. All as planned.

The wonderful thing about having knee surgery is that you have a new knee. The horrible thing about knee surgery is that if you don’t work the muscles around it, it won’t help anything.

Of course, that’s true of any life gift. Any really valuable gift has to be worked with to gain any connection to it: a child, a love, a book, an education, a pet all have to be constantly engaged with if you want the heart of that gift, the miracle of change it brings.

So in April, after everything had healed, it still hurt pretty darn bad. I’m not a tiro about pain. I’ve been in constant pain since I was in my early thirties. My surgeon, Dr. Potaczek, is a benign tyrant and an excellent doctor. He’d told me up front that if I didn’t work it, it wouldn’t work.

So I went to  the Y in Galesburg and started range of motion water classes.

I expected to be in a room of old ladies walking around in the water. I was. Then I found out how astonishing those old ladies were. Some of them were in their 80s or more, beautiful, proportioned and able to go anywhere they wanted. They  have become my heros.

The teachers are astonishing. I was not expecting much. Galesburg is not a hub of learning, inspite of Knox where I went as a girl. But the teachers are compassionate and fighting the flight themselves. Graceously.

I’m finding myself changed. When I started, I was still using a walker for distances. The distance from the parking lot to the pool, counted as distance.

I forgot my cane in the other car a month ago and found I didn’t need it and it changed the way I walk.

I’m better. I know I’m a world better. But I have several takeaways from this.

1. When I was a girl I learned to live strictly in my head and my hands, I lived with my thoughts and what I could make. Everything in between, like my body didn’t count. At 66 that’s not working. It’s lovely to climb out of my head and try living in my body. My body can be a good place if I graciously tend it.
2. Does it hurt? Yep! Living hurts. And is warm and is hot and is cold. Pain is not necessarily bad. In this case, it’s a road to change.
3. Am I creating anything? Yep. Me. I’m creating a me that can walk places, travel again, wander, swim, jog in water.
4. How does all that feel? Astonishing. And stupid. You would think I would figure out I had to move to live. But you get things when you get things.
5. What made this miracle? Access to health care. I finally, thanks first to my husband, Don, and secondly to medicare have access to blood pressure meds, and knee replacements. But also the ability to dream. I really had about given up. The love of the people around me changed that largely. Particularly my husband, Don.
6. What have I learned? That I have to claim my body and work with it to live in it. And that it’s basically with all it’s flaws, worthy to live in. And that everyone should have the access to medical care. Without it we just crumble until someone sweeps us up and throws us away.

This is not a lecture blog. This is simply where I’ve been for a while. For a good month I came back from my classes and fell asleep in my chair after forgetting lunch. Before that, I was crumbling and I knew it. I’m grateful. I’m working it. Creation isn’t always art. It’s the art of living as well.