Cleaned up photo that Nathan took at Pelican Lake in Juno Beach FL in June or early July 2010.
I was outside dumping used bunny litter where I let it get rained on before I use it as mulch and potting soil. It had been raining; I saw a neighborhood of these mushrooms. Running back into the house, I grabbed my camera and took a series of mushroom family "groups". I like this little bunch.

I love being surrounded by new things--growing things. Even when I am stagnant--propped up on the couch with my knee up--waiting to heal, the rest of the yard is busy growing and changing.

An invitation to encourage my body to to get on with the process of healing.

Happy Fourth of July!

It is the 4th of July and it has been thundering and lightening-ing and everyone around us has been setting off fireworks. Lots of wet and lots of noise and I am glad that I am inside listening to it all and watching old movies and eating pretzels and petting the cat.

Expert on: Post-Op Rules

After Church this morning, I spoke with a wonderful woman who is going to have to undergo surgery this coming week. As we talked, I realized that I had been operated on for the same problem. She asked me about what to expect after the surgery. Her doctor had told her that she was to stay completely flat on her back in bed for 12 weeks to allow the new tissue time to completely heal and settle into place. She asked what problems I had--and I explained that I was not as wise as she was and had felt pretty good after just 3 days in bed--so I got up and went into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher. Someone came to pick up some music and I sat with them in the living room and talked until (wonder of wonders) I began to bleed and to hurt-- A LOT. I listed for her some of the liquid-ish things that were OK to eat--and others that would seem to be OK, but that contained high amounts of fiber--which was NOT OK to eat. I recommended that she stockpile a dozen or so movies that she could watch on her laptop--so that she didn't have to get up and change the DVDs. She is smarter than I am and I am sure that she will stay down and let her body heal.

It occurred to me this evening that I am really good with infants since I have no infants to take care of myself. In the same vein, I am great at telling people what to do after surgery since I am not recovering right now myself.

Well, actually I am recovering from knee surgery.

Never mind.

I Gotta Get This Show

Curly would have been labeled as a "dangerous jumper" because he did not bring both knees up together to go over the jump. I have never had more fun jumping, though, or felt safer than when I was riding him. Texas 1990

Jon loved seeing himself in the viewer screen on the back of my camera. I got this one of him, looking at us, reflected together in the mirror backing a Chinese ceramics display in the Smithsonian. Maryland 2010

Brent and Nate and I went on a road trip to Fort Lauderdale. The art museum was a WAY BIG disappointment, but at a museum collection of old Packard cars, there was more to see. Florida 2010

I did this one while trying to get ideas for a "self portrait that you didn't look like yourself in it" assignment for a black and white photography class I took at PBSC. Florida 2009

This is one of the first shots I ever took of myself in my kitchen window. After dark it is as sharply reflective as a mirror. I was wearing my favorite shirt. Florida 2008

This is a photograph, also a reflection in the kitchen window, that I took and think of as my "50th Year Old Portrait." Florida 2009

"Kiss today goodbye and point me towards tomorrow . . ."

"Every Little Step" is an old film, a retrospective (their word) on the casting process in preparation for the revival of A Chorus Line. It is a slap in my face that yells at me that I never could have done what those people did. I didn't start dancing soon enough or seriously enough. I didn't. I was too chunky as a teenager. I was. I would have killed myself had I broken through the constraints of my father's advice and lost myself in the mirror that frees and contains a dancer. I am preoccupied now with my own reflection.

Our kitchen window looks out over the sink onto the lanai and, at night, reflects my own face back at me--but softly. I have taken dozens--maybe hundreds--of photographs of myself looking back at myself. Perhaps it is the dearth of ("women's tears"--"dearth of women's tears" is a line from a war poem I studied at BYU) images from all the years when the children were growing up. Perhaps thousands of photographs--the majority of them thrown out or lost or ruined in the flood--I took. An acquaintance once said that she took so many pictures of her kids growing up so that when she got old and got Alzheimer's, she'd still be able to look back and know that she had lived a life full of people and places--even if she didn't remember that she had been there or was related to the faces in the photographs.

Nikki from Fleetwood Mac put photographs of herself posing in toe shoes and ballet costumes on the covers of her record albums (back when there were photo albums) and anyone who ever danced could tell that she's never had any real experience as a ballerina or even tried to stand "en pointe." I had. I had worn and bled into real toe shoes. Though I never got paid for dancing, after class one day, I was told by a fellow dance student at BYU: "It's beautiful to see you. I love watching you dance."

And that has always been enough for me. I am a dancer.

But I am not a professional dancer. Actually I'm not a professional anything. After finishing my Masters, I did get to teach a few semesters of college English and worked as a Legal Assistant while Brent was in law school. I have played organ and piano and sung and played flute. I have written hundreds of pages of prose--and half again as much in essay response and/or literary analysis. If I lived by "Publish or Perish," I'd be long gone and buried. My mom loved my letters and Megan is doing amazing artwork to accompany a children's narrative that I composed.

Seeing anything about the theatre always makes me feel morose and begin to self-assess based on my teenage need to face myself by losing myself in the character of a play. I got lots of chances to do that. There was little competition from others 15-to-20-year-olds who could not exist without a ready-made façade to hide behind. Desperation breeds excellence.

Especially in front of a full-length mirror.

Am I depressed tonight? No. I am just upset that I did not have the chance to ruin my body sooner in a more dramatic way. At the end of "Every Little Step," one of the actresses who got a major part was the daughter of a ballet dancer. He danced for 20 years and then blew out a knee. He thought that he was finished as a dancer--and then Baryshnikov called him and told him to get back to the theatre. In six weeks he was dancing again. At the end of the evening's performance, his dance slipper was full of blood.

But he ended his comments by telling the viewers to ask any dancer, any gymnast who participated in the Olympics--would they give up the ruined shoulders, damaged ankles, arthritic knees?

It was worth it. What ever was lost--it was worth it.

And really . . . I feel the same way about all the injuries I sustained from my horseback riding time. And even now after surgery on my left knee, I hate laying on my back on the couch, with my knee above my heart, doing needlework and watching old movies and writing in my blogs and trying to remember when to take the extra meds and make appointments for the doctors and physical therapy. But . . . still, offered the chance, I would not have given up a single moment of flying over the earth, of becoming all the mass and grace of a 700 pound horse. I would not. Blood in my slipper. Scars on my shoulder. Bone spurs on my spine. Concussive bruise marks on the inside of my skull.

I would do it all again.

I have not gotten any wiser as I have gotten older. Half a century and I still cling to the memory of the feeling of being on a horse--of having someone who thought it was beautiful when she saw me dance.

One moment of being a dancer.

"Kiss today--"

I don't want to be pointed only toward tomorrow--not if it means that I have to leave my past behind.

I feel much better now.

It's Friday Night and I Got Me a Bum Knee

I am sitting at home, in the family room, with my feet in my husband's lap, and we are watching (a past season of a thriller series called) Kidnapped. It is a collection of episodes based on the kidnap of a wealthy man's son where everyone has a shady past and the most unexpected friendships surface at the most unexpected moments. The rich man had an affair with a less-rich woman who adored him while he and his wife were separated. The separated wife apparently visited the less-rich girl and no one ever saw her again--the wife paid the girl to walk away--"to save my family." This is day 9 and Leo (the kidnapped teenager who seems to be the only one in the whole show who knew what was important in life) is appearing to everyone and talking to them--especially the dad. Everyone--FBI especially (the ex-FBI and FBI)--there's this one young FBI agent who looks really open and honest, but he has just been bumped up the ladder from Alaska to NYC. Since he looks squeeky-clean he has to be someone who has already done something crooked. People get beat up and then beat up those people who beat them up.

It is all a bit over the top for me. I am one of the little people who would have sent $10 and a sympathy card to the rich family telling them that I was sorry that their son was kidnapped and that their $40 million got blown up.

Now they've got smoke bomb in a bottle of water. I understand now why they wouldn't let anyone even take water with them onto an airplane after 9-11.

New Knee

This is a curly tailed lizard that was trying to climb up a tree--he kept slipping.

Here's a view of the whole plant that received a graft (a homework assignment in my propagation class this summer.)

This graft isn't mine. It was done by a fellow named David. When the professor saw it he did the teacher-equivalent of cheer. It was a beautifully healed graft.

The scaring was thorough and complete. Beautiful.

Trees heal, now it's my turn.

Monday my orthopaedic surgeon went in and arthroscopicly cleaned out my left knee. I'd put in a picture, but right now all my knee looks like is a tan-mottled-purple softball with three stars of paper tape stuck over the three incision locations. I do, however, have lots of time to write--since I am going to be starting a new habit with this operation. New? Yes, I will be laying about with my knee lifted above my heart for days rather than hours--before I start physical therapy or even do much traveling about the house. I have been doing the three exercises that the post-op nurse told me to do from the very beginning . . . while laying on my back with my knee raised above the level of my heart.

I have finished Susan's ribbon pants and a pair of shorts that I really liked, but wore once too many times while gardening--the left knee split through. (Ummmm . . . could be a clue to the mystery of how my knee fell apart in the first place?) All of my plants from my plant propagation class are safely huddled in the lanai, next to the house so that Nathan has to go out every other day and water them. The rabbits are also under the care of (mostly) Nathan who lets them out in the kitchen to frolic and meet for face washing sessions. Brent helps with the clean up in the evening. Nate feels kind of sorry for them and so offers more treats than they usually get. They have been cooperating amazingly well--no secret pee spots in the corners of the kitchen.

It reminds me of the frequent times that I was sick or in the hospital or away from home while Meg, La and Nathan were all still home. The house was spotless when I got home and then, as soon as I entered, the 1st law of thermodynamics (everything tends to go from order to disorder) set in. In the matter of a day, the house was cluttered and the sink was full of dishes. I am proud of my children's abilities to cope on their own. Sue, the woman who is in charge of the college plant nursery, told me that she always did the dishes and the laundry and the cooking--even when her kids were teenagers--and they have now left the "nest" without the ability to take care of themselves. I know that with a mother like Sue they will learn quickly to manage for themselves--memories of her examples will surface when panic sets in. I am so proud of my own children, though, who began college knowing how to do the mundane, daily tasks associated with surviving in the world.

I hear people saying that they wish that they could go back and begin again at 16 or 20--that they would do a better job of managing life. I do not have to imagine this--I am watching my children go through their 20's and doing a much better job than I could do myself.

Now that I am 51 (fifty one, sequenta uno, 25+25+1) I am impressed with not only my children and the way that they live their lives--but also with myself and the way that I have learned from and loved them. I would prefer a body that still bounced back from my adventures like it used to--but I am glad for the adventures that have brought me to the place where I am and the things that I am learning to do.

I am thirsty. I think that I will ask Nathan to bring me some of the orange strawberry slushy drink that Brent blended for me last night. Unbending (ha!) knees have few advantages right now, but there are still a few. Brent folded the laundry that Nathan washed and dried yesterday. All challenges with my body aside, I really do have an incredible life.

Everything is OK, Expensive, but OK

Here is the dead hot water heater sitting quietly at the back of the garage.

My right foot is all healed up from its run-in with the blender that I dropped on it. You see a happy foot because it has some garden dirt on it--which means that it was just outside in the garden.

The only ducklings to hatch at the lake are growing up fast. One of them injured its leg, but is able to keep up with the others. There are so many people who come and provide feed for the birds and animals there that I think its chances to grow up healthy and strong are good.

One of the cowbirds that nested in the marshy reeds that surround one side of the lake. It was overcast enough so that I could get a picture of her head and her eye. It was a hot day, even with water all around, the birds were still panting in the heat.

Well, it looks like this week is going to be one of rather huge expenses. The car is in the shop--with AC and a transmission system leak. The hot water heater died last night, and while doing so completely flooded the garage. As I speak, the AC & Heating person is on his way to pick up a replacement so that he can muscle out the old one and delicately implant the new. My left knee has an acute meniscus tear--and some deformity of the cartilage. Don't remember WHEN that happened.

On the up side: When the hot water heater overflowed, all of the water ran through the garage and down the driveway instead of pooling up and flooding the house. My knee injury happened when I was asleep or out of it (perhaps, Brent thinks, the night that I fell and smacked my face against the bedpost) so that it needs mending, but I didn't have to feel the hurt of the injury. I am able to put off the surgery until after my horticulture propagation class is over. And as I sit here, it doesn't hurt or itch at all. And the car? When we get it back, the AC will again be ice cold even when it is above 100 degrees Fahrenheit with 100% humidity outside. I think that about covers it.

Also--my foot is recovered with only minimal scarring. The blender, however, is definitely a goner.

Oh! On the most uppest side: Brent is home from Houston and everything went well and he didn't get sick while he was there.