worry

WATCHING THE STORM ARRIVE

/ janpriddyoregon / 5 Comments

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Sometimes I worry about things. Mostly I have worried about that shallow and selfish threat to my country. You know, that one. But since I unsubscribed from cable television, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, I push those concerns to one side.

I worry about global warming and the use of poisons to control insects and weeds and people. I worry about cancers and the danger of a tidal wave washing my home away.

I worry about population growth, a concern when I was a little girl and the earth’s human population was less than three billion, and now approaching eight billion. I worry about the loss of empty spaces, that human need to use everything.

I worry that a journal that has short-listed my story for a year only means to tease me. I worry about using too much purple or not enough in the quilt I am making. I worry that the sweater I should be re-knitting for my grandson will be too large or scratchy or no longer colors he likes.

I worry that so many people are reading my post “Why You Don’t Want to Become a Teacher” and will think I did not love teaching and miss teaching with all my heart.

I worry about the way our community is changing into an industrial zone without people to care for more than income.

I worry about my brittle bones and bad teeth, my weight gain and poor posture, and finding better medical care.

I worry about the power flickering in and out, but not too much.

Those are the easy things.

I worry about dying and leaving my husband alone or being left alone by him dying first. I worry about alienating my daughters-in-law, each a dear person but not my daughter. I worry that I have failed to help my sons know and trust their obvious courage and kindness.

I worry my older granddaughter will throw herself on the floor in a fit of embarrassment. I worry that my younger granddaughter will be the pretty sweet girl people take advantage of. I worry about my grandson’s attention.

I worry every time my husband calls across the house to tell me about reading that someone we know has died.

And then.

And then I sit down during a break from the sewing machine and steam iron, push color aside, and I watch the storm come in. The waves are higher than yesterday. The sky is dark and brilliant. Rain makes a variable patter on the skylights. There is thunder far away, but the ocean roars steady over all.

And the sky is sometimes aqua overhead and bright and then darkening with heavy clouds. Those who only value the clear sunny days as good weather must have simpler lives than mine. This is the world I love.

My worries are fruitless, pointless, fussing. The storm is inevitable, inviolable, and out of my control. It is coming onshore.

I watch the storm arrive and I am not worried.

 

HELP, I’VE FALLEN BUT I GOT BACK UP

/ janpriddyoregon / 2 Comments

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I fell hard yesterday. I was doing something stupid, trotting backwards as I tried to photograph my husband and a seastack and he kept walking right out of my frame. (If he knows he’s being photographed, he mugs or frowns. Photos of Gary smiling are pretty rare.)

So I was backing up to keep Gary in my photograph, and I tripped over a rock poking out of the sand that I had failed to notice and landed hard on my back. The smooth wet sand was hard as concrete. I did not land on the rock.

Still on the sand, I held still to discover how badly hurt I was. Would I be able to stand up? Had I broken my pelvis? I hurt. Gary had been watching me and wondered what I was doing. He says he thought, “Why is she trotting backwards? She’s going to hit that rock.” Then I did and he trotted over to me.

When he arrived, he said: “What are you you trying to do?” I snapped back at him, and he considered that a good sign. I hurt.

When I was pregnant with our first child I tripped and landed in a seated position. I damaged my tailbone. The doctor said it might have been cracked, but they couldn’t Xray because of the baby, and “there’s nothing we could do for you anyway.” Time would heal me, not any treatment they could offer beyond over-the-counter pain meds such as Tylenal. That was almost forty years ago, but I remembered that pain and considered that I might have cracked something in my pelvic area, but there wasn’t much to be done about it.

Aside from, maybe, my little toe and the little finger on my right hand, I have never actually broken a bone. Usually, I am a good faller. I could probably recall every time in my life I have ever fallen. Never from a tree, but once on my bike as a child. I jumped from a second story window, but that was a stupid choice, not a fall. I’ve been thrown from horses without a mark. One fall while pregnant, once I tripped over the oversize shoes my podiatrist insisted I wear, before I was used to them. About fifteen years ago, I fell while running hills when I missed my footing at the edge of pavement on the highway. I got right back up and kept running. This time was not like that.

After a half minute assessing my condition, flat on the sand, I rolled carefully to the side and got up. Yes, hurt. Not broken, not flashing or searing pain, nothing stabbing or worse on standing. We continued our walk, stopped when we got to a stream we could not cross without getting wet, and turned for home. I took two aspirin, sat carefully, discovered what movement hurt more or less, and went back to work on a quilt. A few hours later I took another dose of aspirin, and that’s all I have done. A former student, now nearly a nurse, warned me not to use aspirin, so I stopped.

Gary told our older son on the phone about my fall, which I had not planned to reveal to anyone. Like their dad, sons worry.

When I got out of bed this morning, I felt odd in my head—not pain, but fluffy, disconnection. I lay back down for a time, considering the possibility of concussion. When I got up again, I felt the same wooly-headedness, and I was careful.

So maybe a cracked bone, certainly some bruising though nothing shows, and maybe a concussion—I hit the back of my head hard. I will take it easy for a few days. I will not think too hard since research suggests that an active mind after a concussion slows recovery. I think about my students who were in car crashes, suffered concussions and came back too soon. I think about the coach who put his own son back into a game after he suffered a concussion. I think about my age and that I am too old to risk the loss of brain function. I think worrying probably isn’t good for me.

My husband brings me coffee in bed each morning. My favorite grandparent, my step-grandfather Lavin Hansen, whom I called “Papa,” brought coffee to my grandmother in bed each morning.

The mind travels even when the body is in pain.