Normally I celebrate the equinoxes and solstices with a paddle, preferably at dawn when I can watch the light dance on water. This vernal equinox I had to be satisfied with the glorious radiant orange of my first Orange King calendula flower.
One of my paddle arms is out of action for the next two months or so.
Bruising is starting to creep out from under the splint and bandaging a bit alarmingly. I'm hoping that's a good sign that my gentle movement therapy is addressing lymphatic and blood drainage. But really I don't know. The medical establishment is just happy to send me home with high schedule opiates. Which, in the past 48 hours, I have stopped taking. Either the pain is getting less, or I'm getting better at enduring it and not provoking new pain by moving the arm wrong.
I am blaming the three days of prescription opiates for the vacant emptiness I currently feel. But it could also just be me. Or a post trauma response.
Fetching my mail at the post office today some random person, who is not a total stranger as they regularly disrupt my farmers market displays, consume a lot of my time and attention, but never buy anything, decided to interrogate me about the bound arm in a sling. They then attempted to foist their non-traditional medicine options on me. I cut off the conversation as soon as I could, without hearing exactly what was on offer. I've had enough of pushers for this week, thankyou.
Add that encounter to my list of rude and intrusive transgressions on the part of strangers in this uncivil country where few seem to have respect for manners or boundaries. That pain, it seems is never going to go away as long as I am in this country. Reason enough to begin to examine exit strategies.
Im interested in the exit strategy notion.....