By the Skin of My Teeth

Writing through pain and resting to write again

I went in for back surgery on Monday, May 3rd. The previous Thursday I’d found out I was going to have surgery, and when I began writing this it was Thursday again and I was on percocet and tylenol and ibuprofen and several different laxatives, having had the surgery. Today it is Thursday again, and this is the first day I have woken up without having to take an opiate. I am very grateful for that, especially as someone who has struggled with addiction in the past, and for whom taking opiates is fraught.

Life is strange.

Last Thursday I walked for twenty minutes. I kept thinking I was walking too much, but it didn’t hurt, and the doctors told me the best thing I could do was walk. Walk as much as my pain would allow. This morning I woke up and made my coffee and walked for twenty minutes, too. It’s become my morning ritual, this walking. I make my coffee, take my vitamins and my Tylenol and my muscle relaxer and, if I am in too much pain, a percocet, and I walk my beautiful Seattle neighborhood. I encourage the flowers to grow as I encourage my own growth.

For the last month I have wanted to walk so badly. I was haunted by the spring flowers and the wind, the diaphanous cherry blossoms adrift on sweet-smelling air currents, their ephemeral petals melting into the streets and sidewalks and grass. I didn'’t want to go outside, knowing I couldn’t sit or walk without intense pain.

On my walks I tug the blooming lilac bunches, lowering them to my nose and inhaling their candy-sweet scent. I inhale deeply as I walk, the scents of all the flowers blooming, the wet grass, the rain on the concrete; I rapture in it. I titl my face to the sky to absorb the sun or rain or mist or clouds or simply so I can inhale more, absorb more. Today it is raining, and I will walk several times. Walking promotes circulation. I imagine my blood coursing through my spine, cleansing the places where bone was taken away; where materials were removed to create space for my nerves, which are now healing themselves.

For a month my left leg was partially numb. The numbness ran along a path of pain. The numbness gripped my leg like a vice, pulsing and squeezing until I gritted my teeth. That numbness is almost totally gone; a miracle. It feels like a miracle. No longer is my left leg weak and nearly useless. It supports me again.

It’s strange to think of healing oneself when I have so much work due. Today is the first day I am doing work and the first thing I do is write this newsletter, for you, because I want to.

I have been waiting for my (different, more temporary) pain to subside so I can stop taking the painkillers and get back to work because I am behind on several projects. My cat tells me to rest and I try to listen. If it weren’t for my mealtrain and the donations by friends and strangers I would have forced myself to work. I am grateful I don’t have to do that, though in all honesty I am doing that today. I could rest more. But I will get back to work.

My first real trip out of the house post-surgery. Elliott Bay Books, Molly Moon’s Ice Cream, and a trip to the Seattle Glossier store. Most importantly, a kindred spirit.

A few days ago, after over a week alone, a friend visited and stayed the night. The visit was itself miraculous. My friend Katie, an artist who resides in Oaxaca, was a peer in my yoga teacher training (which ended at this time lat year (ask me the name of the studio so I can tell you to steer clear of them)) and we hadn’t met in person. When I picked her up in the Central District on a bluebird day we hugged and it felt like I had met her a hundred times.

I was reminded of what it feels like to spend time with someone who has learned to love themselves. How easy it is to keep the river of love open between each other, a reciprocal exchange. I was reminded that I have often misinterpreted the absence of this self-love as rejection, when in reality it has very little to do with me.

I was reminded that, in the best relationships in my life, I do not have to convince anyone to love me, nor do I have to soothe anyone into accepting my love. I’ve been thinking about how, when we cannot fully accept love from others, that is hurtful to not only us, but them. And sometimes it feels like rejection, when in actuality we are rejecting ourselves, and the love being offered to us.

I was reminded of the embodied feeling of acceptance, and I am holding that in my heart as I make this huge transition across the country and seek community there.

The one has kept me company and taken good care of me.

Lately on my walks I have been obsessing over the Irises. Funny, for most of my life I overlooked Irises. Last spring I noticed them, finally. Maybe it’s because the peonies have been blooming later each spring, and the peonies, when they unfurl and turn their faces towards the sky until their heads are so heavy they rest on the ground, garner all my attention. The irises are quieter. One must lean in to see their intricacies. Their scent is green; neutral. They are confident in their quiet beauty.

I have been working on my Mother’s Day List of memoirs but it’s taking a while. I’ll be sending the list out in segments.

WHAT I’VE LOVED

• I recently read Second Place by Rachel Cusk. I adored it. Cusk is a master of getting inside of relationships, and especially feminine performance and the oppression of the male gaze. The book is loosely based on the memoir Lorenzo in Taos by Mabel Dodge Luhan, whose writing has been experiencing a revival (as detailed in this excellent New Yorker piece by Rebecca Panovka).

• Another great book: Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez was compulsively readable. It took me a minute to dive in because, on its surface, it felt like a romance, but it definitely was way more than that. The prose is propulsive; the content complex and current. I kept looking at the cover, which is beautifully designed by Lauren Peters-Collaer. (Side note, I linked to Lauren’s website and may have just found my favorite book designer ever? WOW).

• Honestly, I haven’t read much as I’ve recovered. But I watched a lot of things. I am loving Julia on HBO. It really dives into the complexity of the time and place in which Julia Childs was working in a way that other texts haven’t— maybe because it has the space as a series rather than a film. I am also totally engrossed in Under the Banner of Heaven, which is a series based on the book by Jon Krakauer. I devoured the book when it came out, having descended from and always been interested in cultish religions. The series benefits from an amazing cast (including Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones), Krakauer’s advising, and having a showrunner (Dustin Lance Black) who grew up in Mormonism as a gay man and left the church when he was younger.

• Hm. What else? I’ve been reading my fire books as I prepare to revise my own book, which will be released in August 2023. I’ll be starting revisions next week.

What have you been reading and watching and consuming? Drop links in the comments!