Monday, January 3, 2022

 Monday, January 3, 2022

 

   Before getting up, I felt waves of shame as I lay in bed. My mother was good at promoting it. She suffered from it excessively, too. Trivial things triggered these feelings this morning; the small change the cover slide for my videos still needed . I have no idea why our minds torment us like that. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t choose to ignore it. If I felt myself investing in it, I would have. But thanks to Vipassana, I could observe it with only mild feelings of aversion. I chose to continue to observe it because Vipassana teaches if you can observe negative feelings with equanimity, they go away. I have experienced this for myself. It’s a remarkable process.

    I resolved a painful physical situation with Vipassana on my first meditation retreat. The muscles on my inner thigh hurt, preventing me from sitting cross-legged comfortably. My weight shifted back on my coccyx when I put my legs out straight in front of me. I fractured it when I was twelve, and it has bothered me ever since. Sitting on it was excruciating.  

    I chose to sit in the cross-legged position. I described the sensations instead of thinking of them as a pain level. The pain would break through my resolution, and I would be overwhelmed. I started again, and then the pain went away. It was incredible. I never had pain in that spot again when I sat cross-legged until Mike wrenched my leg and tore that muscle. I haven’t sat cross-legged since then. 

    I saw my PT Katie today. She worked on my ankle. She observed that my right ankle had a normal range of movement. My left ankle had an unhealthily large range of motion. She said my foot is compensating for the rigidity in my hip. Now, both my hip and my ankle are dysfunctional.   The current problem I have with my ankle may result from increased mobility in my hip.  

  I learned something interesting about physical development in children. We are all turned in at the hip when we are young. Somewhere between 9 and 11, our hips out. Mine never did that. I suspect it was because of something that happened when I was seven. It was a two-minute event, painful, frightening, but over. It’s incredible how something that brief can change the course of your life.  

    I considered hip replacement again, assuming it would fix this problem with my ankle. That assumes my hip problem caused the ankle problem. Yes and no. Katie said that after the operation, I would have a problem with my ankle because I would have greater mobility in my hip, putting the over-stretched muscles in my foot under strain. This is why the problem with my foot may be caused by the improvements in my hip mobility I have already achieved.   I made an appointment with my primary physician to check out THR again. The first available would be at least three months out. That would give me plenty of time to work on the ankle. If it was a temporary problem, it would heal and could cancel the surgery – again. This would be my third time.

    My next-door neighbor had a five-foot `rock wall built with six-and-a-half-foot towers on either side of the driveway entrance to hide their Turo cars from view. The workers evened out the ground. Something they did dislodged a board that was wedged in between our chain-link fence and rock wall tower, leaving a gap large enough for either Little or Elsa to slip through on yoga days. I made several efforts to replace it. How hard could it be? All my efforts failed. I talked to Yvette about finding some way to fasten the board to the chain-link fence. How about picture wire? Nay. That would rust quickly and crumble. How about plastic zip ties? I know I had some large ones. 

   As I returned from one of my short walks, I saw the men near our fence. “Hey, something you did dislodge a board we use the close a gap in the fence. Could you guys fix it?” Sure. I went inside and gave it no more thought. Yvette called to say the guys did an amazing job. She stopped by to thank them. I went out to look. They held the two-by-four with a two-and-a-half-foot metal spike, wedging it in place. They had also screwed the spike to the board. It ain’t going nowhere. 

   It was a quiet day. I watched TV during the day, which I never do, seeing the end of Friends with Money. Quite a cast! It was a depressing and uplifting view of long-term female friendships. This is the second day I have watched a video in the middle of the day. It felt relaxing.

    On the other hand, I did some work on the PowerPoint video on Phase III. I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just mumbling my way through it.

    My ankle swelled. It took a while for me to register that I could take an Ibuprofen. Oo, oo, oo, what a little Ibuprofen will do, do, do.