tuckova

I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t in some measure of physical pain. A month? Maybe almost two. I know some people are in pain all the time, real serious pain that is worse than a toothache or a crunkledy back, and I’m not comparing myself to them at all. It’s just: I don’t think about myself this way. I think of myself as fairly impervious. I am the person who will get three hours of sleep and get up the next day and wash windows and wax the floor. I am the woman who will smash her hand through the window and go out dancing after she gets home from the hospital. I am not one to be held back by a boo-boo, and it is almost never more serious than a boo-boo. So it troubles me to realize that I cannot remember the last day that I did not wake and stretch and wince, the last day I did not take something for pain, the last day that I did not consider, before starting a task, whether it was going to hurt. It troubles me first because it makes me feel like a physical wuss and second because I think a certain lack of self-reliance indicates a weakness in mental focus that doesn’t bode well.

It’s spring. I think it’s probably time for a change. I can get up the hill to the cottage without stopping but I think somehow I need to be kicked back into shape anyway. I do not like feeling weak, feeling incapable, feeling powerless. I think I need my body to remember that it is a valuable member of team anne, and I think I need to get it off the bench, where it is sulking. I’m not sure how yet but I am determined.

This weekend we went to the cottage, where we finally have a real roof. A roof is very good and now we are planning to think towards real walls, woot. We spent the weekend shredding branches from the pruned apple trees into manageable piles of fragrant woodchips, and jumping up and down on the compost pile. Good times, y’all. It was cold and windy and frustrating in parts but mostly it was all snails climbing Mt. Fuji. Oh, and Easter was awesome. I got thwacked a little harder than usual (uhm, ow) and also a sunburn (again, and louder: ow) but the sun was shining and my friends are lovely and the pickled eggs turned out great and altogether I feel fairly cheery, just not entirely right.