Today something changed. Maybe because the leg is healing after the surgery to mend my left Achilli’s tendon, it is able to find a more comfortable position, and other parts of the body have adjusted into positions that allow me to write without screaming every five minutes. Maybe I am screamingly bored, cannot read the news or scroll down Facebook anymore, and those intolerances have necessarily pushed me beyond a barrier.
I have slept enough in the past three weeks to satisfy my needs for the next year. There is nothing wrong with me that wouldn’t be made better by a brisk walk. Walking from room to room on crutches (but only when I have to) has actually seemed like exercise.
Am I complaining? A little. Yet, I’m only three weeks into this. I have friends who have been through far worse for far longer as partial payment for a new knee. For instance. I never appreciated what they endured, what patience it takes, what stability of character. What support from others.
A few days ago, I think – time slides around like Jell-o on a warm plate, even more so than during lockdown – I discovered a site that offers free, public domain, audio books. You know, all the greats of English and American literature. This was good, for reading has been even more impossible than writing, and for all the same reasons. I’d never read A Tale of Two Cities, so I chose that as a project. I got through most of Book Two by yesterday, but so far today cannot face it again. Too much like the news, only darker. All windows are grimy, most of the players are desperate, the ruling class is cluelessly self-involved and heedlessly cruel, the poor too many and terribly ground down, the finely drawn characters often repellant. Okay, almost exactly like the news. I’m taking a break.
I’ve tried writing before during this recuperation. First failures reference the aforementioned physical discomforts. Even as those became, at least in my imagination, surmountable, an acceptable opening sentence would not present itself. They all whined and contained too many first person pronouns. Writing about experiences in lockdown was still to record a communal event, even in my solitude. This personal lockdown of recovery affects mostly me, and the kind souls – Erika first among them – who have been solicitous of my well-being and comfort. Whining feels unappreciative. In fact, it is a bit unappreciative. And as I am strongly appreciative, I don’t want to leave a contrary impression. But I am not a happy sitter even in the best of times, and while these are not the worst of times except to my restless legs and over-used buttocks, one does get bored and a little hysterical when the clock tells us that the interminable day is not yet half wasted.
I feel for prisoners of all epochs. Wonder at the anchorite. Am made humble by the hermit. Have great empathy for the bed-ridden and isolated. It is not how we are made, to be this sedentary and apart from community. It takes a great measure of letting go; some of that is good, too much can begin to turn morbid.
Cynthia’s lovely apartment, where I am spending this period of seclusion, even completely re-arranged and protected, is a godsend. If I seem to be whining now, imagine how I would sound confined to my former cottage’s upper floor, wonderful neighbors notwithstanding. Given that I have to relocate while my leg heals (with the kind assistance of yet more friends) I would have had to leave even those confines in the middle of my recovery (the house has been rented to a new tenant, already) whereas here I can see out my term. And the place that will be prepared for me is lovely in many ways. But I look at its photos online – for I saw it in person only in late May, and only once – and wonder at the kitchen, its lack of storage, its lack of an over-the-sink dish drain or alternatively, a dishwasher, and try to imagine how living there would actually be. I have to entrust to the advice of others who can physically visit and draw practical conclusions.
But I have shelter, wonderful friends, good doctors, and relative comfort and health. That is so much more than millions of others.
The surgeon will come tomorrow to see if the stitches are ready to come out. He put them in almost three weeks ago in a beautiful hospital outside Siena during an operation that involved no discomfort, not even a bill. If they come out, that will be a marker, at least. I doubt that my mobility will much increase, or if it does, it will do so incrementally. So, perhaps once I exorcise this demon of restless squirming, I will find a way to write again; about this remarkable town I live in and my view of it from Cynthia’s lovely, long terrace. A hobble onto and upon the terrace is my – practical, I hope – next goal. It will broaden my horizons, and that is always a good and welcome thing. And a reward.