Update and my Christmas Tree

Thank you for the inquiries about my health.  I have had some difficult news about the spinal issues and am simply working on learning to function in spite of them AND accommodating them as necessary. Sometimes this means finding the boundaries by crashing into them and then needing a few days to deal with the repercussions, but, well, that's the only way I know to learn my limitations.

I have to find them.

Super stores would appear to be my main downfall. I cannot make it through  a super grocery store, so I will not go to them any more. I have had several dear friends suggest I use a motorized cart, but I think that this maybe shows most graphically how I feel I need to approach the challenges of new damage in both the thoracic and cervical spine.

I will not sit down unless there is no choice. There are other stores in which I can shop, and while they cost a bit more money, they allow me to stand, to walk, to complete my shopping, to get the items upstairs all on my own. THEN I can recuperate for a couple of hours. Psychologically, that choice to use the motorized chair is a symbol for me. I do not judge anyone for choosing the chair.

But for now? I need to keep my legs moving when and however I can.

My absence here is simply a reflection of my turning my attention to physical survival and adaptation. The pain is horrible, yes... but there are medications that help, and I am learning to use my yoga and breathing to control my own response to what pain remains because I choose NOT to have large doses of the meds.

I am decorating my tree. What used to be a two day process is a four-day one, but it is a beautiful process for me.  Ninety per cent of the ornaments on my tree are gifts and/or symbols of people I love. David is a drummer... an old love who remains a dear, dear friend. I have a stained glass "present" ornament he gave me thirty years ago, and three drum sets friends have given me. Jim--the brother of whom I rarely write--played the trombone. I keep an ornament that reminds me of the best of him. He had a best and I choose to keep that nugget. My sister played the clarinet, Jack played the banjo. Jamie and R, the guitar. I have my two guitars and I choose to keep R. on my tree, despite the way he treated me.  My tree represents the best of people I love, and when I look I try to focus on that. I have gifts from Gail, from Paige and Judy, Nancy, Sue, Martha... ornaments that were my parents', ornaments from both sets of grandparents' trees.  There is the reindeer in her glitter dress, leaping... my tutu'd flamingo, Santa on a chicken, a glitter pig riding the moon, a rocking cow. I have blown glass holly and a hobby horse. I have glass icicles that will be the finishing garnish, replacing the lead tinsel of my youth. One hundred fifty of them will go on tonight, near lights. With a finishing touch of 100 tiny balls on the tips. They make the tree float at night.

My tree represents joy to me. I have modes of transportation, every musical instrument known, right down to an accordion.  I have beautiful Santas and dopey ones, I have a castle and a house, tinkerbell and the tin man. Raggedy Andy. I gave Raggedy Ann to my counselor the Christmas after Jessie died, and she gave me a blown glass bell from Bermuda. I have a flute; Jessie played the flute. And a little boy playing soccer, the way Jay did. So many bits that make me think of them all...

And all of it is my mother and father.

My tree is love; the season is love to me.  If anything can bring me out of the losses of the last few years, can help me believe that there will be joy in the years ahead, my tree will do it. The recollections of my family Christmases, of my beloved sister.

Fetching the stockings at the top of the stairs. Daddy's socks were long. We hung them by the chimney, but Santa put them at the top of the stairs. Jean Ellen got them, told the boys it was time, and the four of us piled on her big bed, to open the stockings, to laugh... to give my parents' an extra hour's rest on the craziest day of our year...

But that's for another week.

For now, thank you one and all, for the concern, and for making me feel that my writing offers gifts to more than myself. I have to go work on my tree some more. I cannot find just the right place for my hooker flamingo in her polka dotted dress. I mean, you can't put her just anywhere. And my glitter frog prince... I was given him as a reminder that maybe one day the amphibian would change.

Not so much, but I don't care. I JUST love that damned frog just fine.

Uh-oh... then there is the high heeled puce green boot with the red feather fur at its top... the problem with having the tree at the top of the stairs, is there is no longer any "back of the tree!"  Elvis can be seen, even in toward the trunk. And this boot? OH. Wait. There's a spot just above Santa on a Chicken, three branches from the pig wrapped in a string of lights... never mind.

Later.