The Artist

Outside the sun wallows and swoons. She is like a woman in love, radiant and docile. Her golden headdress drops feathers to the ground. Feathers which the shadows with their infinite recesses fold into themselves for safe-keeping.

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The mud cracks in a way that is vaguely sinister and fantastically human. If I look long enough I will find the face of someone ancient and famous who embodies humanity more in death than most of us do in life.

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There is a carnival of flowers dancing around my ankles. There is heat in my body and seagulls shrieking as they swoop dangerously close to my head. I leave them all behind and go inside. Once inside I turn cold and cavernous. I am waiting for an excuse to write so I clean the drain and put on the water full blast and watch everything fall into darkness.

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I smell of wool and dried sweat. The window is looking in on me without reservation or pretense. The sky is supple and blue. I want to climb into it and lie down as if it were a lake that I could breathe inside.

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Today I visited the home of a painter who became a writer who dreamt of being a painter. I found her words more beautiful then her still lifes and portraits. Her paintings were mechanical. She wrote under a pseudonym but there was more of her in print.

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I went home with a postcard of the artist herself not one she had painted but one taken of her in Paris. In the photograph she looks like she wants to crawl out of her skin, like she’s felt everything at least once and has decided that she wants to go on living only she can’t quite bring herself to live the life she really wants. She was phenomenally strong and phenomenally patient and when I look at her I see a person who is both resigned to a life of fire and anonymity, a life of compromise and incessant wanderings.

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When I left the museum I realized that it doesn’t matter what you pursue because pursuing anything is still a voluntary act of creation. There is the sun and the moon and a sky full of ceaseless fish with scales that reflect like mirrors all the brightness and vastness which exists in each of us whatever shape our dreams assume.

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PS I did like the painting she created of her husband, by far the most expressive

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Week 4 Day Day 4

I took the same walk today but in reverse, the reverse way being uphill. It went great though I did step in 2 potholes disguised by snow! I have therapy today and am in something of a rush during the weekend I hope to increase the length of my walks. I got my 10, 000 steps yesterday and it really hasn’t been that difficult. Also yesterday I tried a mini cobra, first time I have even attempted to be on my stomach and it went well. Still no computer of my own and it doesn’t look like I will have one for 1-2 months. Poor hubs! Over all I am doing pretty good I’d say.

Week 3 Day 7

I can’t believe how far I have come already. It is a long process certainly but my mood has remained positive. My pain is less for sure. Mostly it is just a general soreness/awareness/swollen feeling (though I am less swollen today then I have been). I am still having regular bowel movements which is more than I could have hoped for. Gas is an intermittent issue.

 

Yesterday I got 9, 106 steps so I am really getting close to my 10, 000 step goal. Today I am off to a strong start because Sam and I went out for lunch again and had a walk. The walk was 31 minutes and I really didn’t feel fatigued or strained in anyway.

 

Sam tried talking to his parents about the dog situation but they don’t understand/sympathize. They concede that the dog in question is untrained and will very likely jump on us in the beginning but feel that after 20 minutes or so that she will calm down/relax. They do not see how being pummeled for several minutes by a large, enthusiastic dog could be risky for me or why I can’t just suck it up for 20 minutes. She is cute and sweet and I know it is unintentional but there is also no way to explain the situation to her and since she doesn’t obey commands there is no way to deter the behavior either short of tying her up which would be unfair. I realize I come out looking like a lunatic and a bad guy but a matter of sucking it up for 20 minutes could mean an injury on top of what I already have that carries on much longer. I need to be able to return to work, to being a healthy mom, and so forth.

Week 3 Day 4

So yesterday I got a whopping 7,133 steps! I am not really sure why it amounted to so many more because I only walked an extra minute on my main walk and I didn’t feel it was so different from yesterday otherwise. Maybe I am walking more confidently? I am aiming to get 10,000 steps for the total day and then eventually I would like to be able to take longer walks so I can go hiking and such. On Sunday before the surgery Sam and I went on a hike and it amounted to like 13, 000 steps and there was a part of it involving the look out which was a very steep climb followed by ladders. I want to do that same hike at the same time next year.

I have stairs in my house and the fitbit is still doing a poor job picking that up possibly because I am so cautious on the stairs (our stairs are so slick and have a spiral turn).

My pain is getting better. I am still swollen which does make for sore abdominal muscles. Honestly it feels quite similar to being pregnant (I started out 6 months pregnant and now I think I am more 3-4 months lol). I am so curious what my stomach is going to look like when it is no longer distended and I am curious about the scar too. The surgeon did such an amazing job on the incision and with the stitching that I think it will be very tidy (provided I take care and don’t do anything stupid). I would say it is going well. Except the deep sleep I got a little of that in the beginning of my recovery but now it is back to being poor. I get between 12-50 minutes of deep sleep and someone my age is supposed to get like 2 hours. As you get older you get less so it is scary to think how I will mentally function later in life. I am assuming it is the PTSD but it is hard to control an unconscious tendency toward vigilance.

Today Sam and I went out for lunch and had a walk before. It ended up being 27 minutes as we were walking in a different town/different route. It went pretty well. I have noticed my back gets pretty tired as it is harder to maintain good posture without my abs.

Week 3 Day 3

I’ve had a little peek behind the bandage strips (it is suggested to wear them for a year to lessen the severity of the scar) and it seems to be healing very well. Yesterday I got 5,881 steps. At the start of this I was burning very little calories each day. First day of surgery, which I mostly spent in bed, was 1,396 and yesterday it was 1,721 so that gives me more leeway which makes it easier to maintain my weight. I haven’t struggled very much with cravings for junk at this point. I eat normally at meals, portion-wise (my normal is probably slightly high). My pain is getting better each day. There isn’t anything spectacular to report. It was icy outside today. I bought some slip protection for my shoes which has sandpaper. There wasn’t like a thick layer of ice more like patches of ice mixed with frost but I am so clumsy on ice (like cartoon clumsy, I even slid over a cliff on a mountain once but hubbie caught me mid air) that I thought better safe than sorry! My walk today clocked in at 22 minutes. I think if I were at normal walking speed it wouldn’t take as long to cover the same distance but I am getting faster. My fitbit picks up the walks (which I only just realized) so maybe if I remembered to track them I might get the actual pace and see how it increases with time. Right now I weigh daily but I will only record my weight here on Saturdays.

Week 2 Day 7

So yesterday I ended up with a 1,000 more steps than the day before! I felt my walk honestly went pretty well despite my vertical driveway and it wasn’t quite as cold which was a relief. I haven’t taken my walk today but I always aim to get a little further each time by keeping a mental marker of how far I got before. I am feeling better today and I think even less swollen so I am optimistic that I can get a little further safely. Soon I will get to add a little more to my routine as well. I added a supported (bolster under the knees) reclined twist today which went well. I still can’t find when it is safe for me to sit up and lie down in bed like normal I am still using the safety technique so if anyone has any info on that let me know. At the moment my weight is pretty steady as well.

 

In other news Sam finished the wardrobe he was making for me. We had a built in closet (Swedish style ugly white box thing) in that room and when removed we discovered the floor and wallpaper did not not extend to that area. Since we plan on changing both it’s not such a problem but we have to get the funds to redecorate it. I really hope we can soon, I just love having my own yoga room. He hobbled together scrap and cheap wood to create the wardrobe and I think it is lovely. The design on the panels though nearly drove him to madness trying to paint. The drawers are huge I don’t actually have that many workout clothes but hey an excuse to buy them lol

Oyster

Anton Semenov

I have no wings

Only a single inert feather

Budding beside

A protrusive blade

So I crawl

Wondering how far

The horizon, thinking

Even the surface would do

I study the stalagmites

That form on my mobile

My milk tears spinning

Singing out to you mother

I wonder how many hours

You left me there

Waiting for my shell to crack

Knowing that only death

Could emote such horror

*

I, a giant grey tongue

Absorbing, hungry

Too innocent

To activate filter

Poisoned by vitriol

In degrees too excessive

To habituate

*

This the second of my autobiographical poems

Inversion

I used to walk

Until dawn surrendered

Adroitly to dusk

My terminal tethered

To the horizon

To a land

Primitive with heat

And lascivious wires

*

I sought the nostrum

Of a more compelling

Illusion

My life being

Wholly inconceivable

I welcomed

Asphalt flowers into

My soiled heart

For is it not tenacity

That propagates myth

To chase the sun

Whatever the expense

*

I used to wear a forgery

Of my asperous smile

Each scar accented

From a pretentious palate

Each virtue smeared

Haphazardly

Into the lower lashes

Like the blight

Of an impious contagion

Uncompromising

I grew fearfully

With a predisposition

To inversion

=

This is a deeply personal and traumatic piece I am not certain it makes sense outside of my own head. As a child I would walk until my shoes filled with blood, it was my way of escaping a horrible home life.