Time is a fast moving stream and an ever changing dream. And yet...when you are broken, everything slows to a crawl and it is tempting to believe that you will forever be limited by the limitations of Today. I peruse Facebook statuses like I used to read the newspaper headlines. Some things catch my eye and others go by without notice. I enjoy the connection with friends and family near and far but so much of what is posted is repetitive. Sometimes I feel inspired by the slogans and quotes about the limitless self capable of creating miracles...that nothing holds you back but your mind and you can create your own reality and if you can't you must harbor limiting beliefs about yourself. As I chew on these leaves...a slow moving caterpillar eating everything that looks apetizing, I ruminate about my physical capabilites. Having broken my shoulder, I am consumed with the need to take care of my healing self. Notions of limitless ability are ridiculous. No matter how unlimited I am in my mind, my body is just not able to perform at it's usual level. Woven into my current reality is the need to romance the notion of being sixty years old. Time is a passing and I am becoming something I've never been before...a tribal elder. How do I learn to embrace this crone-self? This grey haired lady with saggy boobs and a weak left side that requires checking in with multiple times a day...for signals of overuse...for rest...for letting go of the frustration that is a part of not being able to do what one has always done. How do I let go of all my to do lists and productive agendas so that I can quietly and patiently stretch my recouperating muscles. How do I allow myself to not do? I am discovering what a goal oriented product loving achiever that I really am. Perhaps I let my inner grower go wild...demanding my time and attention for weeding the plantings...watering and mulching and tending and picking and then putting it all up. My garden, for years has been teaching me that YES...I can always do more than I think. I push on and push through...a tired back can wait till I finish the next row. My aching arms can rest as soon as I finish shoveling shit. I have become stronger. I have a strong work ethic and if I plant a seed, I commit to it...for I am responsible for cherishing the life I have begun and for savoring the life that feeds me. Waste is not OK. Killing chemicals are not OK. Somethings have to be planted just for the bugs and the woodchucks. In the process, I can't help but believe I have become overall...stronger and more of my natural self. At the end of last summer, I was defeated by the bugs and funguses and especially the weeds. I still managed to reap a bountiful harvest...but not without the guilt of knowing I could have done a better job creating a fertile environment for the lives I sewed. Lucky for me, I managed to get myself to the University for further education in making a garden. The more I learn about the science of pests and pathogens, the more miraculous it seems that I have had as much of a harvest from my garden as I have. I had to miss many classes due to my accident. In the whole mix, my Mom experienced a compression fracture of her vertebrae and today...she is coming home from rehab. Her bones are frail and she teeters on the threshold of her life on planet Earth. I worry. How will she do on the stairs. How will my sister do with her increased limitations? I feel fear. I feel guilt. I worry and wish I could be in two places at once...but I have only one shoulder to offer...only one side that can offer support or a hand. The harder I force myself to look at the positive, the more the negative seems to kick my ass. There is a split inside me. What if I refuse to separate everything into positive and negative...feeling smug with easy labels and classifications? What if I take everything...accident, pain, physical therapy, limits, watching Mom becoming more and more fragile as "POSITIVE"?
For one, I can no longer indulge that browbeating inner critic to seeing it (the accident) as a punishment for vague undefined failures. Mmmm. That frees up some energy. Suddenly I'm not a bad person. Maybe just clumsy. And then all the self judgements kind of fold up on themselves and become meaningless. Now the bad shoulder means I am not allowed to overdo yard work or moving heavy things. It's not about the self judgement of laziness. My whole 60 years of selftalk flashes in front of my eyes. Yep...its all bullshit. ALL of it. I don't believe one word. And instantly, I am free. Free of the anger and frustration of letting myself down...free of the high expectations, I am allowed to breathe. And freed of the low expectations...and I am free to soar. Yes. Limits can be frustrating. But when you slow down...take stock and love those limits...they can be the door to freedom's flight. And suddenly...the caterpillar emerges into a reality as strange and wonderful as science fiction. Reframed...it begins a whole new life...as a butterfly.
