"I pronounce you healed"

A few weeks ago, I was attending the 4th Annual Spider Reunion.  I missed the first one, the 30th Homecoming Reunion for Class of 1981, but several of us had agreed to meet annually after that.  The 2nd one was at my home in Albuquerque, the 3rd at G's family riverside home in Kentucky. This year was based in C's South Forks, Colorado, family cabin. 

It was another excellent visit, from both a vacation and a reunion point of view.  The aspen were at their peak, and the rocks at La Garita's Penitente Canyon and Creede's Bachelor Loop were awesome.  B drove her 4 wheel drive truck rental, so we were fairly intrepid until we reached the sign halfway to Wheeler Geologic region:  "Boggy road: 4 wheel drive not recommended."  That would be another way of saying, "Don't even bother."  At any rate, that was our interpretation.  Our other option was an 8-mile hike, which the literature claimed to be quicker than the road, anyway.  Not being in shape for a 16-mile slog at altitude, we turned back.

Anyway, this is not going to be a travelogue.  The road to Slumgullion Pass, with the bark beetle devastation and golden hillsides, Summitville ghost town with the tumbling grey houses and SuperFund sludge ponds, and the sandy beaches of Great Sand Dunes National Park: all are sufficiently documented elsewhere.  So is the Bloody Moon eclipse that C and I watched, along with the brilliant Milky Way, as we talked quietly of past, present, and future.  (B and her husband were still making their way down from Denver:  that night they were in Ouray, where the clouds obscured the event for them.)

For me, the main point of the trip was the farewell hug with B, who looked at me and said, "I pronounce you healed." 

It's good to hear, good to know that my friends have stopped worrying about me. But I still wonder.  Last week I was walking back from Cid's Supermarket with G.  We had been buying the fixings for salsa:  a man at the farmer's market had given me a small bag, full of overripe tomatoes, but I still needed cilantro and jalapenos. As we walked and talked, enjoying the crisp autumn weather, I found myself slipping on the gravel in a driveway that slanted across the sidewalk, landing on my left knee, hip, and elbow. 

It's at least 3 months
Since I last publicly fell down.
'Twas a graceful slide.

I tend to fall in G's company, but not exclusively.  I fell down the spiral stairs at G's during the last Spider reunion, when he was nowhere to be seen.  And the month before that I had fallen on the ferry deck, riding from Seattle to Bainbridge Island and thence to Sequim, WA.  Most recently, I had tripped on the sidewalk during the late June trip to Portland.

There is nothing physically causing these accidents, if accidents they be. I'm not dizzy;  there is no inner ear problem, no diabetes, no stroke, no broken hip.  I'm just not paying attention, distracted by anything and everything.  In each case, I've been talking to someone, excited and happy to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.  So, while I've been living in one moment, I've been ignoring other moments:  my body has been going on automatic pilot while my brain and attention have been focused on people, scenery, weather.  And apparently my body's pilot needs some watching.

But it's not just klutziness that ails me.  I find myself regularly closing down. Last month, I got queasy twice:  cold sweats, dizziness, and nausea.  Today I have flu-like symptoms.  I seem to need an inordinate amount of sleep.  I wake up grumpy.  What is going on? 

As I sit in my house robe, I ponder. Am I really healed?  Is anyone ever truly healed from the blows that life deals, from the viruses and attacks and bacteria and sorrows?  Does emotional healing lead to physical healing, or vice versa?  If I have healed emotionally, why am I still a grumpy, sleepy, queasy klutz?

Perhaps that's my basic personality, and I just have to get over myself.  Or perhaps I just need to stop berating myself for having a whiny mind in an imperfect body, because that's not all that I am. A few weeks ago I was struck dumb by the beauty of aspen on a Colorado mountain side.  I was joyful to be sharing that beauty with old friends.  And that's the flip side of my coin: a joyful mind in a sensory body.

I look out my window and watch the cottonwood, with its ancient, creased grey trunk and falling golden leaves.  I don't even have to drive up to Colorado to see beauty.  It's right in my backyard, and I don't need the ruby slippers to take me there.