Weightlifting

I had my second hydrotherapy session today. It feels wonderful to be in the (very) warm water, to feel pain and tension and the heavy burden that is the Dead Leg seep away for a little while. I feel very much at home in the water, and I have to resist the urge to drop down and scoot along the bottom of the pool. I used to tune out the world that way, stop being responsible and the oldest and worrying about where everyone else was. I have to pay attention at hydrotherapy, because I might miss something crucial, the one magical exercise that will mean I get to leave the Dead Leg floating here by himself forever.

When my session is over, I walk to the bottom of the stairs. As I climb up, I get heavier and heavier. I stagger under the weight of the Dead Leg. He is still here. I collect all of my pain,  too, as I walk up the steps, and the weight that comes from knowing this is as good as I'll get, this 45 minute stint in the pool before I have to collect being disabled as I collect my keys from the basket.

Process of Poetry

I am still editing. And it is difficult. I am still working on the critical component of my M Res, and compared to that, editing is a doddle. I don't know how to 'justify,' critically speaking, what I've written, or the ways in which I have written it. I am struggling to define my own personal ethic, in terms of writing, so that someone else can understand it, or at least have some sense of my process. But how can I explain something that I am only just beginning to trust and rely on myself? I know when I draft is 'done,' when I can't do any more to a piece of writing for the moment,  and I know when I am ready to work on it again, because my brain itches. Right now, my brain is so tired that the itching ain't happening. I have successfully titrated myself off of Pregabalin, which didn't work its promised magic on the pain, but I am not sleeping well, in part because I need to get writing done and I can't relax. I'll try to have a nap, and see if I can feel the itching in my head a bit more clearly after that.