Elemental Things
As is so often the case—in times of distress, the simpler and more elemental aspects of life are where we derive the most comfort.
The steady voice of your Dad over the phone,
a bundle of flowers from a friend,
your Moms daily check-in texts,
the ability to have the windows open to let in the fresh rain saturated air,
music coming from another room in the house,
the familiarity and unfiltered way with which you can have a late night discussion with your best friend about the names they could give their almost-here baby that would involve the least amount of mocking from other children,
the tactile feel of antique cotton pulled taught in an embroidery hoop and the soft pop-swish sound of a sewing needle drawing thread through it,
your husbands arms around you time and time again, holding you up and together consistently and constantly.
Or such are my current elemental things.
It is the elemental that I am trying to focus on this week, as it is bringing a slow grounding to my days and truth be told—that is currently very much needed as I have never been good at being but so still.
I am a doer, a go-getter, a daily get-shit-done sort of person.
A six week order to not lift anything heavier than ten pounds, feels near-impossible and in the first few days of being home from the hospital, I all but ran headlong down the path of overdoing it.
But now I am sitting here, reframing and restructuring my doing.
Easing into a new routine of slowly coming undone, and mindful meandering.
Allowing myself the time to just follow my curiosity (yesterday’s— cross stitching my initials onto practically everything I own) and focus on healing.
I am grateful for all of the folks who have reached out to make sure we are okay, indeed we are okay (I say we as this is just as much Owen’s hardship as my own).
A couple of gut incisions worse for wear, the grueling effects of antibiotics and the slight mystery of what-actually-happened-and-is-going-to-happen aside, things in this moment are okay.
Not being able to fully work or be in the shop feels scary, but I have been in an unwinding season of needing to restructure and figure out a lot of things for some time.
This experience is just another item on an increasingly long list, that is forcing me to do it.
Or perhaps this is a coping mechanism of reframing and the making-sense-of mentality that we often are pushed into in times of distress…
Whichever the case may be, I am off to circle back once again, to those elemental things and the comfort of knowing they will be there, always there, should the things outside of my control change once again.
