A Rumination on running with a sling

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Rottnest Island ,Western Australia

A Rumination on Running with a Sling

I am running along a path on Rottnest Island ,Western Australia ,my left arm secure in a black sling .I have become attached to that sling ,my shoulder and wrist are safe.I also feel like I stand out from the walkers and runners along this way .I am not just another old woman stumbling along ,red in the face and short of breath ,pumping my arms and leaning forward as I have been told in training so as to get maximum benefit from the running movement ,shoulders back ( that in itself creates problems .I fear that the lean forward will tip my precarious balance so that I topple over onto the already injured arm .How do I lean forward ,look ahead and keep shoulders back while moving at a pace past a stumble ?)

Age and falling are much on my mind today .My mother after countless falls has a frame ,which she uses just to toddle around the house.She never goes out the front door ,not even into the garden.Her days are spent sitting on the same chair around the dining room table staring into space,rinsing out undies and boiling some rice at 3:30 pm on the dot .She comes to the door after a few rings and if she cannot get the visitor to go away she grudgingly lets them sit in the chair opposite her for a bit ,peering constantly at the clock and saying that she has to get her tea done .This as well as being almost stone deaf ,so it’s an exhausting process talking with her ,even when she wants to hear. My favourite aunt ,my mums sister,is in the hospital with a serious lung problem .She cannot breathe properly ,and has stopped moving too .My mother-in-law,always self sufficient , has organised her daughter to move her into high care.Older friends have started dying .Even some not so old friends have died from assorted causes .I am back running as far and fast as I can.But falling is always on the cards.

The writer David Sedaris in his collection Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls describes his fall during a tour of some ruins .A man yells “Don’t move him”.Sedaris recounts as he moves stiffly around the next morning that it was not the impact of the fall that caused most hurt ,but the embarrassment of that remark-he felt not only stupid but “stupid and old “.I confess right now that after reading the Sedaris essays I thought ,well he is old.He is a writer ,he has written about the mostly muddled ,accident prone and much travelled existence he leads ,and he gets away with it.People read him-why not me ?So David Sedaris if you read this ,thank you .I have finally come out as a writer,and although I may not emerge as amusing and touching a writer as you ,I can have a go in the short time remaining before I fall off another chair and stop running .This blog starts with my fall from a chair at Rottnest holiday island off the coast from Fremantle.

Actually I had just got back from the mainland ,returned to the cottage my husband and I were renting for a long term stay and I panicked (another thing that old people do more often ).Where was my computer ? It was not on the shelf I usually leave it on ( old people have to leave objects in the same place each time they put them away or they forget firstly that they ever had the object and secondly they spend hours in a fruitless ,increasingly panic stricken search before retreating into a stupor .This leads to a recurrence of depressive symptoms if not halted immediately by some action like a run ,or rushing to the wine bottle and the cake or nuts .Or, the least harmful reaction ,if the partner is around, a blend of blame ,wistfulness and indirect threats slung at the partner)

I was on my own and had been warned by aforesaid partner about standing on chairs .Nevertheless,in an unthinking moment I grabbed a curvy surfaced chair ,dragged it to the shelf up above the cupboard in the bedroom and leapt up on it with both feet.No computer.Rising heartbeat.In my haste to get down one walking boot tangled with other as the curved chair surface rose to meet the sides of the boots and a hurriedly tied lace .I felt the snag and foresaw the fall the second before it happened .I saw my self hurtling through the air to the tiled floor and hitting the shoulder that I have already injured twice from assorted falls,but my body was already in freefall.Fortunately I managed to fling my left hand out in front of my shoulder so that the wrist took the impact as my arm bent back with a loud click .Pain shot through my whole arm as I lay there thinking ,well thats a broken wrist now,how stupid ( and my computer was where I had put it ,but disguised under my jacket )
The bandage and the brace from the island clinic plus some panadol raised my spirits a little.It was a black ,leathery looking brace . My hand fitted in it like a glove ,and I could still run.

In the few days before I had to go back to the mainland to have an X-ray I felt really secure running along with my left hand in the new shiny leather black brace .
My feelings of euphoria ,the product of running ,enabled me to be quite writer-like about some reactions to female runners ,well older female runners .A reaction I have been wanting to document for years ,well,ever since I entered the veteran category .Its all in the tone of voice ,and usually spoken by older ,often potbellied ,men
“Well done “on a rising tone means surprise ,lower means the opposite ,like “silly bugger “,a flat tone means “hope I don’t have to pick you up of the road or call the ambulance “
“Hello” or “Hi”,ditto regarding the tones .This one word has many nuances though as it can mean “ don’t talk to me ,we know how old women look for any opportunity to talk and I am busy .”It often denotes complete disinterest ,like you are an invisible object crawling along the horizon ,not worthy of even a slight gaze
“Careful Now “is usually spoken by a man not moving ,probably at a roadside drinking point or leaning on a wall or propped up against something ,usually with a red face and other signs of high blood pressure.It may be that he wants to strike up a conversation as ,understandably ,his partner has left him .The addition of “love “,this is in Australia,enhances the annoying factor as it denotes a relationship and a caring which the speaker has no right to.Remember I am now at the END of the run ,highly coloured ,gasping for air ,legs buckling ,which means I cannot answer back.I am in no state to be charitable and take this comment at face value or even just as an Australian older male habitual phrase
Which leads me to my forthcoming blog entry ,to the hazards confronting older women runners ,or ,more engagingly,Vets .You will be surprised to discover that the principal,most enduring hazards come from within our own female ranks.Not from the slightingly daft comments made by old male passersby on the periphery of the running circuit .

 

Running lightly along the edge

Running is a sort of metaphor for life .Im sure that has been said before .To rephrase -the techniques of running  and the learning how to run using just enough energy ,caring enough while avoiding some of the pitfalls are mirrored in everyday living

Starting off after a longish break my body feels like a shapeless hulk being willed along the path ,each step hitting the ground with a resounding thump ,each knee bend hurting ,twinges in my back ,shoulders aching as I pull my heavy body forward with my arms .But i keep going ,keep putting one foot down and lifting the other up ,keep my head forward and my breath coming in and out .

If i go too fast i won’t last the distance ,if too slow then it takes so long that I question the reason to run  .Eventually my breathing becomes less rapid ,I can afford to think of things other than how tired I am and how hard it is and what a shit runner i am and how much i weigh ………I can start to think about how the sun is shining ,the view from the path across the bay ,the colour of the water ,how great it is that I’m here in this spot at this time and able to run .

i still have to check for potholes and unsuspected traps ,like bikes coming round the corner ,dear pets tripping me up , the sudden dip in the bend ,the gravel waiting for me to slip .As in The World According to Garp , always beware of the undertow .Forget the unfortunate possibilities  once and that can be an end of a running life .

Running ,really running rather than treading heavily on the ground ,is like a meditation without the  introspection .

 

Making new spaces ,what to keep and what to leave ?

This blog is to go with the photo ,and Ive just been trying to get some images into my writing .Even that is fraught with questions -which images ? why ? What is the theme or linking thread ? What should i delete from computer ,and how do i use the time i have ,to do what of the myriad things i want to do ( or tell myself i want to do ) Hence the title
How do we recreate spaces ?how do make something more liveable and beautiful out of what has become outworn .How do we manage the chaos ,the dirt and dust ,the muddle ,the noise ,which comes from that ,the intrusion on what small routines we have .Most important ,how do we know when to stop before the construction of other spaces twists round on itself ,bites its own tail so that we are back in the very space we were trying to leave ,but minus the bits that we wanted to keep .
Renovation is like the idea of relocation or travel .Somehow the move will transform ones soul ,will provide the direction and surroundings needed to become different ,to nurture all those skills and qualities that have been buried in the present surroundings .Be wary ,don’t dream too much ,invest too much in the future change ,the new spaces .Because wherever you place yourself ,all those beliefs ,attachments ,fears and inadequecies make a little mound around your feet .A smaller mound if you are lucky .
Have you looked at the questions before the making ,like what to get rid of and what to keep? on a purely physical level ,how have you sorted those old photos some of them lying in boxes or scattered around in drawers ? Have you tossed out the clothes you no longer wear or need ? What about that great pair of boots you bought at the op shop a few years ago and wore once ,but just know you might wear them again .Or that blue silk dressing gown you once bought your now buried father ,packed up and posted to him for his birthday .He wore it for 40 years and it was still with him at the end .You kept it when you sorted through his things .The drawings of children and grandchildren ,the special ones with hearts and i love you printed on them .Its easy to toss the school photos taken over the years spanning schooling of the five children ,its easy to toss away some of the memos and bits of writing that came to nothing ,its harder to toss away the shells gathered on different beaches during someones long illness ,a birth ,a depression ,a walk with a child ,each of them has a story ,but only to me .its harder to get rid of Rafs dog collar and tag ,the dog who spent most of his life wandering the neighbourhood and beyond in the days before fences kept us all safe and inside OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Cleaning :an Introductory reflection

I still don’t know what I’m doing ,but ,inspired by my friend Diane’s account of her South African dish , here goes -Cleaning .Its something that some of us do throughout out lives ,sometimes in our places ,often others’ mess .Any why do we bother ?
Well as i was cleaning our rental unit this morning i thought about how dirt /spots /messes/smudges seem to shift once attacked and almost re -form ,expanding their areas so that they cannot be blotted out .With glass ,for example ,the smudge seems to move .When your arm is aching and your recovered shoulder is throbbing again , your unprotected hands burning from the chemicals you have been forced to use (natural smudged glass remedies do NOT work ) ,you look at the original spot and “yay its gone !”.You step back slowly to get your breath and low and behold there is a larger one further down the glass or alongside or ,worse still for your shoulder ,above head height .How did it get there ? suddenly its very very visible to any guest walking in ,and the sun is shining through the glass too and highlighting millions of smudges and spots .They are multiplying like so many insects being born .spilling out over the windows ,creeping along my arm which is becoming weaker and weaker.

Disheartened ,in pain,and forced to use the left arm, i tackle the stove .This is usually the best of the cleaning bunch. One of my favourite cleaning jobs , the stainless steel stove top ,i love putting the chemical on it and leaving it to dry and then rubbing it first with a soft blue rag and then with one of the multicoloured proper polishing cloths i have .The final  polish requires a very dry ,clean polishing cloth .This job will not hurt my shoulder ,I love seeing the shining,clear surface emerge from the smudgy,indefinite beginnings .I can even overlook the nicks ,the scratches ,the dents in the surface made by time ,members of my family who have  lived here ,assorted friends and the current rental clients .The shine hides all  that ugliness.

This morning the magic does not work .Yes it works till i get the shine and then something happens and a faint misty smudge spills out over the shine. i can’t believe it ,i look at the cloth ,i look at the bottle of metal polish .Fine .I start again .The same thing happens .Maybe this house is sprouting smudges ,maybe it doesn’t want me here or cleaning .I plough on -apply metal cleaner ,rub off first with rag ,polish with the polishing cloth .Again and again and again ,and now my left arm is falling off too

Time for a change of movement so i head for the wooden floors .Ths is a cleaning job that relies on a subtle movement of the arms ,a circular movement from a bent over body.Because the arm movement is different ,i might be able to avoid a long term injury to my wrists and shoulders .I mean the kneeling position helps my back too .i  learnt how to polish floors from my mother while i was a child in Africa .Well she didn’t do it actually but instructed  the maid ,who had to polish the wooden floors regularly .Maria/Anna/Josephine  was more skilled than me ,in that she could use her knees and her hands to polish .How did she do that you ask ? Well she attached cocoanut husks to each of her appendages and crawled around the floors .Watched by my mother with and eagle eye in case she missed shining one of the corners of a room ,or sat back down on her haunches for a breather .My mother in Africa directed operations .i was allowed to join in with my feet ,for a bit of a play .Anyway thats where i picked up the idea of getting down on hands and knees and polishing with a cloth in each hand .Good exercise as it uses core muscles ,gentle on back and arms ,and if your lucky and no one comes to the door or phones or asks where you are you can get into a sort of rhythm ,and then into a light meditation .Quite relaxing compared to the other cleaning tasks .

.Wooden floors look great when they have just been polished :first mopped  with Metholated spirits in hot water ,thats so that the floor doesn’t end up a mass of smudges,as it does with just water The fun part is the wiping /polishing .A slow ,rhythmical arm movement ,a cloth at the end of both of them

I have to say though that sometimes the old smudge morphs itself even in floor polishing .Today that happened and it wasn’t fun anymore .Polish polish polish and a small part finished .head to the next space and polish polish polish .Turn back to look at the first job and there are new smudges that have appeared .Back to the first job .polish polish polish .Check on the second bit and the same messy smudges .And so it does on ,back and forth interminably .The worse thing is that all this energy is not getting anywhere .Getting me back to the physio tomorrow