I appreciate your patience during my brief hiatus.
Last week, I underwent a left Total Hip Replacement, and I’m getting back on my feet again.
It’s a blessing to be relieved of the awful left hip pain I suffered before surgery due to severe arthritis, with no remaining cartilage and bone grinding on bone. Postoperative pain is minimal compared to that excruciating ordeal.
Now I’m getting around the house with a walker as a mobility aid.
In addition, I am working like mad on self-directed physical therapy exercises to strengthen my new and improved hip joint.
And even more importantly, I’ve aggressively weaned myself from opioid pain relievers. My last dose was at bedtime on postoperative day five.
Recovery is all uphill from here. After two weeks, I should transition to a cane, and two weeks later, my own two feet. Spring gardening is a great motivator.
I’m becoming a real live bionic woman with all of this year’s artificial enhancements: first both eyes, now my hip!
What challenges do you face? What do you do to encounter them head-on?
As a writer, every piece committed to a document is a work of creation, building a new entity from the re-organization of existing letters, word forms, and ideas. I learn new things about myself, others, and civilization as I write. I do a tremendous amount of research on the topics I chose for description. And amid that study, I see a great deal of the world’s happenings, both good and evil. In the aftermath of the weekend’s events and the potential for worldwide conflict, we can, while not ignoring reality, instead choose to center and thus empower ourselves with the calming effect of art. Red is the color of rage, of war; other shades of the spectrum personify varying feelings. Responses may differ for the individual. Robert Plutchik elucidated the color wheel of emotion in 1958. Regardless of their creative medium, each artist must search out a kernel of individuality, a grain that makes them unique. How do you react to stress? Do you turn to a creative focus to express your feelin...
Today I am thinking about seeds. As a gardener, vegetables begin as simple seeds. As an author, writing ideas begin as kernels and either blossom into successful work or fail to grow into a completed piece. In both instances, one must have the foresight to recognize what is within the seed. Just as a gardener plans her plot, an author sees not only the night sky but a vision beyond. [above poem published on Cold Moon Journal 5/26/23] But for either, the hard work must be done. The gardener tills the soil and plants the seeds, waters, and weeds. An author must be ever alert for inspiration, jot thoughts in an omnipresent pocket notebook, and sit for hours and days on end, writing on paper or inputting line after line in a word processing program. This summer has been incredibly hot and dry. Despite nurture and watering, some plants have failed to thrive, other hardier specimens are prolific producers. Despite buzzing bees, neither my zucchini nor squash have fruited. As an author, I mus...
Christopher Columbus “discovered” America when he sighted the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. He had sailed west from the Canary Islands, financed by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, searching for a new trade route to Asia. His three ships were the Santa Maria, Nina, and Pinta. His journal entry on October 12th notes: I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. Another entry during this voyage: …these people are very simple in war-like matters … I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased. He made a total of four voyages to the Americas. On the first, he encountered Cuba and Hispanola. He founded a small settlement in Haiti and took some natives captive. On the secon d journey, he sailed with 17 ships. He noted Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Antig...
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