Rewind

So. Remember when I fell on the ice? And my wrists weren't hurt badly and were getting better?

Those were the days.

During the ensuring eight or so weeks, my wrists have actually improved. I have gradually returned to reading, then editing and revising, a bit. Even some writing.

I have also attended a LOT (a lot) of Zoom meetings.

And here's what I saw during those meetings.


The photo above shows the view through the upstairs window where we set up the laptop with the functioning camera. 


Above: a closer shot to better show that thing out there. Yep. It's hanging at the end of rope, twisting in the breeze coming off Lake Superior (from left to right), and knocking gently against the exterior chimney (to the right). 

And yep, a gust from the right/wrong direction could send it right into the window glass! Which probably would have been neither a hassle nor at all expensive to replace! 

Throughout those past eight/nine/ten months years? weeks, I have lived with a sense of impending doom, as illustrated by this view. 

Last week I had another wakeful night in which I decided that although I cannot control all the stressful things in life, surely I could do something about a couple of them.

So I signed up for a grocery pickup service. And I phoned my family doctor because the healing in my wrists had plateaued and I was tired of thinking about them.


So this is the thing that was hanging from the rope on the roof. (I can't explain what it is, because I don't know. It's metal. What role did it play in weighting a string along the roofline, in a Roy-engineered contraption to keep gulls and ravens from sitting on the roof? Couldn't really say, but there's a broken partial hockey stick on another slope of the roof. And to finish the story, said contraption did emphatically NOT keep birds off the roof, but it did make for interesting whining during winter winds.)

The rope finally failed and this metal thing came crashing down onto the ground a couple of weeks ago. Whew. The window is relatively safe.

And so am I. Because I have ventured into our healthcare system and have an appointment Friday to determine whatever we shall do about these fractured wrists (!!!) of mine.

I anticipate casts and a general rewind of my ability to use my hands. I can only accept it in the service of healing. 

I'd been thinking of the metal thing as the Sword of Damocles, except that when I finally looked up that analogy the point of the story seems to be that power brings peril, which doesn't really fit either the literal situation with the window or my own, with the wrists.

For one thing, I would hardly call myself powerful, and for another, my peril came from my own carelessness, not the Winds of Fate. Well, I suppose falling was loosely related to the Power of Considering Oneself Younger And More Balanced Than One Is While Walking On Snow Over A Freaking Ice Rink That Is The Driveway, Not That I'm Bitter.

King James translated it better: Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18).

I would say, "At least I'll be able to go outdoors and enjoy the spring sunshine," except that we had snow last week, and it's still May, so snow isn't out of the question.

But there exist such things as coats and mugs of coffee, and I can still read, so, to quote the woman we know as Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.