The house was dark, the morning too early for sunlight, my bags packed for a 6 a.m. flight. A loyal golden retriever lay in the shadows. He knew we were leaving, so instead of sleeping in his usual nook he planted himself squarely in the hallway.
And I tripped right over him. Down I went, so fast that my chin hit the floor before my hands could react and catch my fall. Hours later, as our plane touched down in Portland, OR, a large bruise had spread from my chin along my jawline into the wrinkles of my neck.
Thus began “the falling,” a time in my life when I frequently tripped and/or bumped into things.
It reached a crisis point on an icy cold morning in the early days of 2007. I awoke with an unusual stiffness in my lower back, and immediately upon rising felt a tightness that extended around my ribcage and into my thoracic spine. As an aging athlete, I tried to rally so shuffled into the kitchen to brew a cup of tea.
Then the strangest thing happened: I couldn’t move. What I mean to say is that my legs wouldn’t move. The muscles did not respond to the signal I gave them. The only thing to do was place the hot tea on the counter and let gravity pull me to the floor. Lying there in my fuzzy red bathrobe, I started to laugh, to cry, laugh, cry, laugh, cry. You know the panicked response, the one that takes over when you find yourself in an awkward position, truly scared but simultaneously feeling ridiculous and quite funny.
There I lay, on the concrete floor with ice raining down outside in record amounts (which for Texans can seem monumental in itself). I knew that Marq was still in the shower so couldn’t hear me even if I yelled. So all I could do was wait.
A few minutes later he stood over me, asked, “What are you doing on the floor?” He was accustomed to seeing me sprawled out on my yoga mat each morning so wasn’t sure why I was on the kitchen floor in my bathrobe. I cried out and tried to tell him I couldn’t move. This propelled him into motion. He quickly pushed my office chair into the kitchen, lifted me into it, then wheeled me to bed.
The short version of this story is that nine months later, after multiple MRIs, CAT scans, x-rays, and months of physical therapy, I regained enough strength to walk and swim for 30 minute intervals. The diagnosis ranged from MS to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, to a final diagnosis of transverse myelitis — an immune response gone haywire. During the next two years I experienced two or three modified versions of this, and now, eight years later, I am healthy, strong, and physically able to do most everything I want.
What I learned during these critical months in 2007 was that I had received a gift — the ability to heal. As my body betrayed me, I was forced to create a new normal. I worked hard, emotionally and physically, to accept my limitations. As a result I began to find joy in the simplest gestures of life — sitting on the porch, counting birds at the feeders, holding a warm cup of tea in my hands, walking the dog to retrieve the morning paper. At first this was all I could do.
Pema Chodron‘s wise advice helps me understand why this period of my life, this falling apart was necessary and good. She reminds us that “things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
Room for falling.
Blessings to you on this beautiful summer day,
Lynda
Sources: Pema Chodron
You are such a beautiful writer, Lynda. Strong too! Thanks for your posts. I’m one of your fans.
Thank you, Sandy. I appreciate your support. This made my day!
Thank you so much for this timely reminder. It has been a tough year. But yesterday I took the time to photograph the beautiful sky over San Antonio. When I returned home and opened my mail box, I had received a drawing address to Grandma Carol from my 5 year old granddaughter in Houston. It was the perfect little/big things to bring my day to a calming end.
So glad to have met you. Your writing is an inspiration.
Thank you, Carol. I’m glad to have met you as well and look forward to seeing you again later this summer. We need gentle reminders from time to time, those bits of love and beauty that keep us grounded and well. I would love to see you photo sometime. Thanks for reading and for your support.
Insightful and inspiring.
Thanks so much for commenting. I appreciate the feedback.
Love this, Lynda – and a good reminder to me that ,while my uncooperative knee is not nearly as dramatic as your temporary paralysis, I can be patient and loving in my response to its needs and know that I will get better and back to doing the things I love to do. xoxoxo to you….
Compassion for ourselves is one of the hardest lessons, isn’t it? I don’t know why that is, but it is. A new normal is not a bad thing, just a new thing that we adjust to (or not). Thank you for your support. I really appreciate your participation.
The power of the body to heal and regain strength! I think while in the midst of all of your “slowing down” you gained some valuable insights and savored the beauty from the simple things in life. They are the most important things but we often overlook them. Even though it was all you could do at the time, what a beautiful blessing to behold! You were brave enough to see those things and you had such gratitude in your heart for them. We don’t get to choose how our lessons show up but we get to expand our perspective when we come out of them with a renewed sense of life and remember what’s really important. Kudos to you for seeing the blessing in the journey!
I am fortunate that I had developed a certain amount of awareness prior to “The Falling,” otherwise, I’m not certain I would have had the same perspective. So I do feel blessed for this and for the lessons I learned during the healing process. There were many! In my studies, I have come to understand that often we can’t comprehend the true purpose of a life event at the time it occurs, only afterward when we’ve had time to refect. During that period, I had ample time to reflect, and as a writer, used that to develop an understanding of what was happening. It became my best survival tool really. Thanks again for your thoughts.