Thanksgiving week was all over extremes for me, but they were useful ones.
Just after the big SidheHaven concert, my final scheduled show of the year, our hostess Sherry packed me and Bekah and the boys and herself off to the seaside for a two-day retreat. Almost as soon as we got ourselves situated in our little vacation house, I pulled a muscle in my lower back- something I’ve never done.
All of you who deal with chronic back pain, or chronic pain of any sort? Respect.
I have been physically incapacitated very few times in my life, and so I have next to no practice at it.
So there I was, on the floor, suddenly, unexpectedly and completely dependent upon my friends. And of course they stepped up. Especially Bekah, who’s seen me at my worst more times than I can count, took extra time to love on me, despite having her hands full of and with the adorableness that is two-year-old Kaius.
I had a moment the next morning, after a blessed Tiger Balm enabled nap, when I turned my head on the pillow and saw a tugboat crossing the Sound – I felt like a girl in a story who’d been sent to the seaside to convalesce.
My condition is much improved today, despite tweaking whatever nerve got pinched AGAIN last night after our big group dinner, but I would not have made it back to sitting up straight in a chair without the people who care about me.
On my wee scale, it’s been a week of epic love, epic gratitude, epic food, and unexpected crappy pain.
But I am blessed to have hundreds and hundreds of incredible people in the world with me, and I am blessed to have their love and affection, as well. In the midst of turmoil and justifiable unrest, I feel that I’m standing strong. This is almost entirely because of the people I personally love and trust.
I got to make an absolute vat of fluffy mashed potatoes for about thirty of my favorite people yesterday. I got to share and witness statements of deep gratitude, I got to feast, and I got to help clean up. And when my little injury made it necessary for me to just sit down, two of my heart-brothers immediately sat down with me, checked on me, and held my hands.
This is how my community rolls, and we are Not in the norm.
I wish that we were.