My, how time flies!
It’s been a year since writing about breaking me ankle. Tip of the ole hat across the pond to Simone for nudging me into an update.
Surgery went well with Doc carving in a titanium plate and nine screws. May have been a bit of overkill but he honored my wishes to be able to do “everything I did before” with a bionic ankle.
The hardest part of it all was the sitting around while healing. For a wanderer that was a veryyy long slog. Several months later it was made more tolerable when I got crutches and Dad would take me to local parks for roof-less respite (thank you Dad for helping enormously during my downtime!).
Oh yeh — that very expensive helicopter ride? I was able to negotiate them down to a few thousand bucks from their massively insane $80k+ bill. Phew. Still, shows how crazy the medical system can be in the States.
In late May I did a test run by hitting the road for a few weeks in the camper (well… I should say wildfires in the area prompted me to escape the intense pall of smoke). I was headed thereabouts to South Carolina but halfway the wind whispered to go west. So I veered to parts of Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama at free dispersed campgrounds. They offered up slices of natural heaven where I lingered longer than usual, a nice respite from last trip’s hectic pace before snapping ankle.
Ah, ye wind — she never fails to surprise and delight with the places she steers me to.
Things went well save for back issues from sitting so long and limping while recovering (’tis much better today - time heals!). The biggest issue was — surprisingly — my physical conditioning. I expected some decline but not the extent it did while waylaid. Even a year later I’m still not quite where I want to be but am slowly getting there. It amazes me how quickly conditioning can fall off a cliff and how long it takes to get back into that high(er) saddle.
When it happened — the breaking of the ankle and crawling back up to the trail — it was an ethereal moment of utter serenity surrounded by a knowing that all would be well.
And that it was meant to be.
Looking back, I see it was a tripwire of life, pulling me back to a place of long stillness into meditation and contemplation. A spiritual and literal reorientation of sorts.
What did I truly want, aside from wandering?
For awhile I’ve had this urge to write more and more but into what, other than my journals? I couldn’t see myself writing books or articles, anything conventional, etc. so urge stalled out and put away.
It was those long hours in my chair, casted leg propped up, that I let my mind do the wandering into a more analog life via all manner of paper zines1, handmade & artist books, APAs (Amateur Press Associations2), bookmaking/binding tools, stacks & reams of different papers and so on. Dad looked askance at the maelstrom of inspiration sailing through the mailbox but he also saw the dawning of a new light in my eyes.
So this was a year of halting and catching fire3 creatively and spiritually, flames of long lost passions flaring into words / art / soul made tangible.
Where the SNAP! of my ankle woke me up.
POW!
Zines are small, handmade mini-books/magazines (usually sheets of paper folded and stapled) where folks share their stories, art n’ such outside traditional publishing.↩︎
APAs are a group of folks who write things and send them to a coordinator who gathers them together into a compendium and sends it back for them to enjoy. Like a group newsletter of sorts. I’ll share examples later.↩︎
“Halt and Catch Fire” is throwback computerese that refers to code which causes the CPU to cease operation, requiring a restart. (The show of same name was great, you might like it).↩︎
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.