Still injured

The sun, a week ago

I took this picture on my hike last Thursday with Melanie. I had to text her yesterday to let her know that I am still injured, unable to walk very far without serious pain. I think I pinched a nerve in the sacroiliac area while trying to work out the kinks in my back. Everything hurt in the area once I finished "fixing" it up. I went to my acupuncturist and he worked on it and made it better, but he also cautioned against doing anything like that again, and said I should keep my walking to just a few minutes until the pain has resolved.

While I was reassured when I wrote my post on Monday that I'd be in much better shape soon, I was once again wrong. After a day of being able to do my exercises, the next day I had to modify three of the five in order to get them done. Every day since then there has been miniscule improvement, but it's been so slow that I have allowed myself to get a little depressed by it all. The usual exercise of walking and hiking that I depend on has been curtailed. Today, however, after several days of morosely staring out at dense fog and no sun, it all changed. The sun came out and is gloriously shining! 

I couldn't help but get outside and walk in it for awhile, and to my great relief, a mile-and-a-half walk didn't hurt but instead soothed my back pain. Not to mention my mood. Now I am feeling much, much better and hopeful that by Saturday I'll be able to join my friend Melanie for a nice walk once again.

Like many people who are having difficulties because of the super-contagious omicron virus, I have also stayed away from places that might expose me to it. Yesterday, however, I donned my brand-new N95 mask and went to the Senior Center to listen to an hour-long talk by Edwina Norton about her book and learned what it must have been like to take up the priesthood as a seventy (something)-year-old woman. It was very interesting, and also daunting to consider what one would have to endure to get to that level, at any age. 

I finished her book on my Kindle this morning. It took six years for her to write it, and she has pretty much retired from anything too strenuous as she has arthritis and nerve damage. She is very lucid and fascinating to listen to, however, which gives me hope that my meditation practice will do something similar for me. Her book, Autumn Light: My Fifty Years in Zen, is a little pricey, so I read the sample first. Of course, that was all it took for me to spring for it, and I'm glad I did.

So that's what I have done with my beautiful Thursday instead of taking a nice long hike in the sunshine. It is enough, and I'm simply grateful for all the sunshine and for my slowly healing back. I hope the Trailblazers are having a great day, too!

:-)