I hit that evil banked curve on the uphill, headed home from Hollyhock on my final day of work with half my office stuffed into one overloaded pannier. Just one last hill from home I slid out on the loose gravel and went down hard. Result: pelvis broke in three places. Yeah, I know—stay outta those places. Ar. Ar. Ar.

Now convalescing in the sunny pine-paneled farmhouse attic, I clock the fog as it eases into the lagoon and rolls back out again. Mergansers and harlequin ducks ruffle around the spit. Tides rise, tides fall, tides come up again. Never a dull moment. Tiva the needy black border collie comes up the steps and waits hopefully at the door. Occasionally I crutch my way down the stairs for a social outing and latte at the café in Mansons Landing. Mostly, I just rest and nap and nap and rest, do a little gentle yoga, then rest some more. Everything is so.  Darn. Slow. Making a cup of tea is an epic endeavor and by the time I’ve accomplished the logistical task of transporting tea to table the tea is cold, and I am ready for another nap. I am anything but bored.

It hurts like a mofo now and then. Not so much where the bones are broken, but where my poor traumatized muscles and tendons and nerves circle the wagons clenching like mad to protect my slowly healing bones. I ache. The only interesting drugs I got for my trouble were Ty3’s, and although the fuzzy codeine stone was kind of pleasant, the ensuing constipation combined with broken pelvis wasn’t worth the high. So it is regular old Tylenol for the ouch, plus a dropper-full of homemade CBD tincture twice a day (I don’t know if this has any effect, but all the websites that happen to sell it claim nothing but miracles).

So here I recline on my cozy couch, fully engaged in this project of healing. I never realized how much energy it takes to heal, as all my troops rally to the bodily battlefront. Dr. Tung the bone doc (cf Dr. Tung’s 3D House of Orthopedic Surgery) commands that I put no weight on the pelvis until the six-week point. So, it is crutchety-crutch for another three weeks and then maybe another six weeks to full recovery. Nothing else to do but rest, rejuvenate, create. Hey—isn’t that what I just asked for? Instant manifestation.  I do have moments of self-pity, of coulda-shoulda-wish-i-was, and the occasion bout of releaseful sobbing. But mostly, the fact is, this is where I am and what I am doing. I could do without the pain—but, in other ways this is exactly the vacation I asked for, if not the one I had in mind.