Yes, we have no Aruns today.

I’ve been home a full week now.  Feels both like five seconds and five months.  I’ve been doing a significant amount of sleeping, and mixing that up with physical therapy, and of course some quality time on the CPM machine.

I keep wanting to come here and say how fabulously well my recovery is going, as if all I can post is good news.  Where that idea came from, I have no idea.  So I’ve stayed away all week.  Truth is, my recovery is going well, but “fabulously” would definitely be an overstatement.  I started my “for real” physical therapy on Monday… and cried through the entire session!   It was hard to think about having to survive weeks of that.  I like my therapist very much, and I know the exercises she makes me do are important and helpful, but the pain that first day was overwhelming!  She was back on Tuesday for round 2, and it went much better than the first day.  No tears! And each day has been the same — pushing and pushing just a little beyond what I think is my limit, but no tears and some real progress.

The one thing that has made it possible for me to get through any of this is my sister’s presence.  Fox has been a wonderful caretaker — making sure I eat, making sure I drink enough water, creating a schedule for my medications.  Unfortunately, she can’t stay for the whole of my leave from work.

We’ve both been annoyed this week because we wanted to be writing and we weren’t. I’d pick up a pen and the next moment I’d be picking my head up off the notebook.  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve drifted off while writing this post!  Today, Fox started working on a story.  I’m hoping the start of her writing will trigger a start for me.

As for my Aruns, that part of my brain seems to be shut down.  Maybe I’ll find a way to write one tomorrow.

_____

And no, I couldn’t resist the easy YouTube link:

Arun 15

I’ve been thinking a lot about Galway Kinnell’s lovely, lovely poem, “BlackBerry Eating”:

Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry — eating in late September.

This has long been a favorite of mine. I love those “many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,” love “squeeze,” and “squinch,” and “splurge.”

This poem has been on my mind as I’ve been playing with the Arun, surprising myself by finding big, squeezable words that fit in one syllable, and greedy ones that seem to take a syllable for every letter. The poems themselves have been equally unwieldy,  refusing to fit tidily into the space I’ve made for them. But I continue, keep looking to learn this black art.

Today was Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day. I’m still in the hospital, but I came prepared: An envelope full of poems ready to be distributed. And distribute I have. I think most people around this ward have assumed I’m nuts, but they’ve still taken their poem. I definitely consider the day a success!

Words
running
circles trough
and around me.
Some carve new ideas,
some
tired
fleshy thoughts.
I enter here,
stubborn, insistent,
whip
cracking
muddy sky,
calm from chaos,
plumbing the darkness.

_____

An Arun: a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Continuous Passive Motion (Arun 14)

Continuous Passive Motion. I hear that and think of someone shrugging their shoulders over and over, or turning their hands palm up. Continuous Passive Motion. As I type this, I am strapped into a CPM, a machine whose sole purpose is to bend and straighten my knee. I am passive while the machine provides the continuous motion. I can’t say that I love this contraption, but I certainly appreciate it. My goal is to get up to 90° … and right now I’m at 88. I’ve got another 10 minutes to go tonight (3 times a day, 2 hours each time), so I’ll have no problem hitting my target.

It hasn’t been a great day. Started with enough pain to bring me, my sister and the physical therapist to tears. But we all got through it, and here I am. CPMing myself to sleep. And writing Aruns!

Tears
like these
remind me
of humanity,
fragility, strength.
Pain
like this
flares through me,
overly hot,
sharp, immediate.
“You’re
alive,”
it says, coy.
These tears, this pain,
the shards of that truth.

_____

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines.  Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Something borrowed but not too blue …

My friend Jill, author of Halloween Stinks and a forthcoming book on parenting, has taken on the Arun challenge! Not only has she shared the form with her son, and not only will he be sharing it with his fourth grade class as part of their poetry unit, Jill wrote a pair of Aruns for my knee:

Arun #1

Pain

Stiffness

A knee frozen

Don’t age me so

Limping and Limping

 

A

battle

with myself

My joints; My limbs

Imprisoning me.

 

Knee

Goodbye

This battle

I will win this

I will walk and dance.

 

 

Arun #2

 

In

Star Trek

years from now

our brains have roads.

We don’t need bodies.

 

But

today

bodies rule,

and my joint quit;

My knee a flat tire

 

I

travel

the future

Titanium

Free me from this knee. 

You can find out more about Jill on her website.

As for me, the surgery — according to everyone who was conscious while it was happening — went wonderfully well.  I had an unexpectedly long stay in recovery — from 2pm until 4 this morning! — thanks to a rather aggressive drop in my blood pressure that had everyone a little worried. But all’s well now and I’m happily ensconced in this room with a view … if I could stand, I’d be looking out at  the river! I’ve already taken about a dozen and a half steps, an endeavor that actually had me in tears after the first half dozen at 9:30 this morning, and which left me just about fully depleted after my second session tonight. Tonight’s session was encouraging, however. Helped me see that I really will be able to walk again!

No Aruns from me tonight. I’ve been either too asleep or too in pain to create. I’ve got my eye on tomorrow …

_____

(I made myself stay up last night to post and share this for Slice of Life Tuesday, then totally forgot to share it or link over to the other slicers. Guess my drugs were having more of an effect than I thought! I’ll get it together next week.)

_____

An Arun is a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines.  Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Aruns for April – 13

Crossed
lines, missed
signals, lost
connections. Your
message slips past me,
I
never
find the words
that ring like truth
in your ears. My lies
fill
your head
like lovers’
whispered secrets.
When will you find me?

_____

An Arun: a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Ready or Not (Arun 12)

Late.
Working,
preparing,
still not ready.
But there’s not waiting.
Now.
Ready,
not ready.
The wait is done.
Seeing the future
means
freeing
myself of past.
I am ready,
unanchored and clear.

_____

An Arun: a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).

Arun for My Knee (11)

Short
days. All
I have are
three short-short days.
Monday changes me,
shifts
the who
of me, how
of me over –
I’m not sure to what.
One
knee. Piece
of tired,
worn equipment.
After Monday, what?

Obviously thinking about my practically-here surgery.  Last night I slept restlessly, kept trying to turn and turn again.  I say “trying” because every attempt woke me with the sharp memory of just how much my knee isn’t really acting the team player these days.  Trying to walk quickly tonight down the short stretch between my subway and my bus … but I couldn’t go fast, not the speed I remember being able to walk years ago, even several months ago.  It’s time.  I know it’s time.

Mostly I just wish I had another couple of weeks to get my act together — finish a thousand things both big and small that I wanted to have out of the way before this moment.  A few of them will still get done, but only a few.   And then I’ll be weeks and weeks away from them, which will be both easy and extraordinarily difficult.

Three days.  Three.  And then a weird, indefinite limbo period.  And then?  A new me with a new knee?  I guess only time can answer that one.

_____

An Arun: a fifteen-line poem in three sets of five lines. Each set of five lines follows the same syllable structure: starting with one syllable and increasing by one (1/2/3/4/5 — 3x).