thoughts

I sprained my left ankle this summer.

(Have I really not mentioned that? It feels like all my life has been about for months. Remember when we could say these things on our blogs without fear that they would not be later hoovered up in a Google search of our lives as proof we have some kind of pre-existing condition?)

I don’t know how I sprained it. All I know is that I uncharacteristically spent the prior day walking around in flip flops. Clearly they ought to carry some sort of warning label.

Anyway.

After a miserable day of limping around my office I did all of the things you are supposed to do: ice, heat, keeping it wrapped, staying off it. I am a good patient, even when I’m not under a doctor’s care.

Except, it never got better. Not really. I kept limping around, hobbling up stairs. And, forget about anything active. The gym went by the wayside, and I had to turn down summer hikes and camping with friends.

My life began synonymous with my left ankle being in pain if I did anything other than sit still. I started doing a lot more sitting still. And, yes, I did eventually go to the doctor – who agreed that I was definitely in pain, but did not have much else to offer me.

I am very, very blessed with good physical health, and I’ve never had to endure any kind of pain for more than a week or two. And, honestly, this is a silly joke compared to the chronic pain many people – my friends! – endure every day of their lives. They, too, get a reminder with every step.

On Monday, in the midst of filling bathtubs and buckets during Hurricane Sandy, I realized my ankle hadn’t bothered me all day. Maybe it’s the anxiety, I surmised. But, I couldn’t help but smile about taking the stairs at my normal speed as I ferried my buckets around the house.

It felt fine on Tuesday, too. Yesterday I wore a pair of boots to work I haven’t worn in months. I smiled down at them all day.

Now, on day four of being pain free, I think it’s safe to say my ankle is all better. I kind of want to go on a celebratory jog. More than that, it means this is my first pain-free week in months. I didn’t realize the psychological effect of that. I’ve been hearing for weeks that I don’t seem like “my normal energetic self.”

I don’t know how people with chronic pain ever wear a smile, let alone act like their energetic selves, normal or not. I just had a bit of low grade ankle pain and I became a miserable shut-in.

I think I may do a lot of skipping today.

I am not getting larger – my clothes are shrinking.

This does not sound like an Occam’s Razor sort of solution to the button-busting problem of my too-tiny garments. Logic dictates that I probably gained a few pounds at the wrong places. The systematic shrinking of all of my clothing by a single size is probably not the answer.

This sent me into a paroxysm of obsessive weight-checking. I would catch my sneaky body gaining a pound like catching a kid with his hand in the candy dish. I would also keep my hand out of the candy dish.

Nothing. I actually lost a pound, sans candy dish. So, lesson learned, on that front.

I was stumped, and also barely squeezing into my jeans. So, I went with my gut (oh, the puns) and called the plumber. I’ll mention that our plumber already thinks I am a little crazy – he’s the one that put a new spigot on the side of the house after I crashed the car into the old one.

“I know there is no cold water,” I explained on the phone to his service, “because I cannot fit into any of my clothes. Also, they all steam when they come out of the wash.”

That’s what the plumber and I discussed yesterday while the washer spun empty, bone-dry circles on the cold cycle.

“Looks like it’s not getting any cold,” he said.

“Yup,” I replied.

“But there is cold coming out of the wall.”

“Really?”

“Yup,” he replied.

“So why isn’t the washer using it?”

“Good question.”

I feel relieved and empowered by this revelation. I was not growing, for real for real. My clothes were shrinking – for sure. Now I’m wondering what other unobvious, Occam-defying explanations for problems in my life I have been dismissing in favor of the most likely answer.

However, there’s still the matter of half of my clothes no longer fitting me.

“Hey,” he said, as he reconnected a hose to the port on our wall, “how’s that new spigot working out for you?”

“It’s great.” I paused. “Actually knowing I have a few extra inches on that side of the driveway makes it easier to pull the car. I’m not as worried about hitting it, so I just do the whole thing better.”

See?

I am conducting an experiment in post-Vermont tranquility: no more complaining.

I don’t think it will be very hard, as I’m not really a complainer by nature.

Wait, let me phrase that a little more carefully so it’s not used against me in the future.

I’m not an idle complainer. I don’t see much point in deriding what I don’t have the will or want to change, unless of course I’m doing it under the guise of writing  scathing critique for our collective entertainment. Otherwise, I’m usually much more focused on what I can do and improve on my own than concentrating on what the people around me or doing wrong.

Yet, lately I find I have plenty of idle complaints about the world around me. People not trying hard enough, not working as a team, complaining too much. Complaining about others complaining too much! What if they complain about my complaining too? It’s like an Ouroboros on Scully’s back, swallowing itself again and again.

That’s not me. It makes me unhappy, and I feel unlike myself.

So here is my proposal for myself and all of you. We stop making complaints. Period. I don’t care if its about waiting in line, or that annoying thing your partner does in the kitchen, or the one thing that drives you the craziest in the entire world. Complaining connotes something having power over us, like telling it our true name.

Inside, I’m going to issue improvements. Corrections. Fixes. Every time I want to idly bitch about something that’s wrong, instead I am going to turn it into something that’s right.

Either that, or write a very scathing critique of it.

I don’t know what got into Philadelphia last night, aside from the surprisingly autumnal breeze that followed my car down every block of West Philly to stream through my window at every stop light.

It was the sort of thing that made me want to take side streets with all four windows rolled down. Apparently, for everyone else it made them insane.

I can understand that. No one was thinking about Autumn. The equinox is a month away. The cool air reminded us that time sprints forward with or without us, which apparently precipitates a lot of wrong-way driving and pounding on car windows and generally acting half like an obstacle course and half like an angry mob.

The passage of time was certainly the theme of my errand – to exchange one last goodbye with Jake. When the idea of his moving first emerged last fall it seemed improbably and remote, but tomorrow he’s catching a train to his new home in upstate New York.

On my way home I paused at a stop sign and was faced by a crowd of people standing in a clump across the intersection from me.

“Oh great,” I sighed, “an actual angry mob.”

I’m starting to get the hang of this driving thing, but this was the first human barricade I had encountered. I wasn’t so sure of the procedure. Do I offer a tribute of some kind in exchange for safe passage?

As I hung back trying to decide how to proceed the crowd shuffled slightly and revealed inside of it a human form, lying curled on the street. There was no indication of what happened – a car accident or a sudden seizure? – but the passers by had surrounded the disabled person like cells forming a scab on a wound, protecting the sensitive area from the world at large.

There were enough people that I didn’t think I could contribute any valuable aid. I signaled right and continued my drive, Autumnal air on my trail.