One step at a time

The world feels like its on fire… literally and metaphorically. And I can barely get out of bed for the pulsing of a migraine.

I prise myself carefully upright and feed the famished felines who have been patting me awake every time I dozed off for the past half hour. I water my balcony plants against the heat of the day to come. I drink my electrolyte solution. The immediate biological needs of the living things in my care have been dealt with, and I lie down again to recover.

I do some meditation, in which I try to accept and repurpose my pain and frustration as energy that I return to the universe. I may be kidding myself, but it feels like it might be doing something good. I feel a little more connected to the world, at least.

Part of my exercise rehabilitation is to have a short walk any and every day that is possible. I put on yesterday’s clothes—I only wore them for 2 hours—and head out, making for the cafe 500 metres (a quarter mile) away.

I greet any neighbours I see. My sticks and mask make me visible, an eccentric. My daily routine makes me familiar and predictable. It’s quite nice when people smile because they recognise you, and vice versa.

The birds strut out of my path, unhurried and unalarmed, they know I cannot chase them. The dogs being walked know me for a reliable source of scratches behind the ears. The air is softly humid against my skin, pleasant now it threatens to be sticky later. My shoulders and ankles burn with a familiar, if unwelcome, pain.

At the cafe I exchange brief greetings with the staff. It is busy early, thanks to the tennis grand slam event. As I wait, longer than usual, for my drink order to be filled, I notice that even with extra staff on at 0815, they are getting in the weeds. The first groups are leaving, queueing, wanting to split the bill; the baristas are going at full speed making coffees, smoothies, fresh juices and even cocktails for seated groups; there are more people waiting to be seated, and a large group’s cooked breakfasts are ready at the kitchen hatch. It takes two servers to ferry it all out.

After a few minutes I get up and bus the three tables that, most unusually, are not yet cleared. I get grateful, agonised eyerolls, from the staff who notice, and I collect my own coffee from the counter, putting the order slip on the spike as protocol requires. It amuses me that, in 30+ years, I haven’t forgotten. I enjoy my coffee even more feeling that I have been a small help. A force for good in my tiny corner of the world.

Walking home, after, I’m slower. The migraine won’t quite let go. My body feels stiff and ungainly, I can’t quite catch my rhythm or my balance. It feel ridiculous to have so much trouble doing something as simple as walking.

There are several people waiting outside for the emergency housing service to open. They look anxious, embarrassed or numb, depending on their mood or circumstances. A couple of rough sleepers, a mother and child, a youngster who has been thrown out after a breakup, a few middle aged and worried. I wish each a good morning, and they nod and mutter good morning back. Some even smile.

One guy asks me where I got my walking poles as his partner has back issues and the pain makes walking difficult. I’m glad to tell him they’re not from somewhere special, they’re from BCF (Boating Camping Fishing) and his expression lightens as he knows it well. His partner emerges, limping, as we talk and is enthusiastic about getting poles of her own.

“I never thought of just using them ski poles things!” She says. “I gotta do something, it hurts so bad, some days.” They are too warm with their thanks, which makes me a little sad. I hope the poles work for her.

My disability makes me more accepted by the people doing it tough. My inner city suburb has every type of inhabitant, from rich urban professionals in luxury apartments, to refugees and people struggling with mental health and addiction, who live in government housing, if they are lucky, and on the street or in their cars if not.

The down and out folk don’t often ask me for money unless they’re really desperate. My greetings are accepted as simple human acknowledgement where once they might have been seen as patronising. They don’t patronise or pretend they don’t see me either, the way some upmarket city types do. We see one another. Its not much, but its not nothing.

Home again, I lie back down to recover. I reduce my productivity goals. I pay one bill, and file three receipts. It will have to do.

I send a couple of texts to friends, to let them know I’m thinking of them. I send a card to another using an online to print service.

My vision blurs. A stab of pain spikes through me. It will have to be enough. My cats come and sit on my legs and chest, pinning me down. They are good at signalling when its time to stop.

As I fall into the darkness, I remind myself that all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It never feels enough, but then it didn’t when I was able to do so much more. We can only do what we can do on any given day. No-one can move faster than one step at a time.

Thank you for reading, your time and attention are a gift.

• How much do you have to get done in a day to feel like it is enough? Has this ever happened?

• What is the maximum you could reasonably hope to get done today, or on a given day? How big is the gap between ‘enough’ where you don’t feel like a failure, and a ‘spectacular’ where you achieve as much as is humanly possible?
  Hint: it should be a big gap. Most of us only have a few spectaculars each year. They are usually forced on us by a crisis in one area of our lives or another, they’re not something to program in weekly.

• What could you remove from your To Do list today, without extreme consequences like getting fired, someone dying or being injured, people hating you forever, police involvement etc? Maybe try it?

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