July Style Journal: Easy Sandals

It is a well-known fact that I love flip flop sandals and, given the chance, I would wear them all year long.  However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found that the standard flip flop sandal doesn’t offer nearly enough arch support for my aging feet.  Can I wear sub-standard flip flops?  Yes, yes I can.  Will I pay the price for this decision?  That is also a yes.  I have a few pairs of high-quality (read: pricey) flip flops but when my most favorite pair suffered a worn out toe post, panic ensued. 

Then, I discovered these sandals.  

They aren’t flip flops, though they share the ease of flip flops and I love wearing them.  I've began to wonder if my love of flip flops is the fact of the toe post or is simply the ease of putting them on…….mind blown, Internet.  Here’s to the ease of summer sandals without an ankle strap.  It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like flip flops, but I can’t have everything.

July 5: Daily Walks

The outdoors are my sweet spot and being able to go for walks and visit gardens and parks has been one of the best parts of my post-hip replacement world.  With the arrival of Summer Break and its relaxed schedule, I’ve made a daily commitment to walks outside.  Sometimes that’s a stroll around my town.  Often, it’s a trip to the familiar landscape of my beloved Colonial Park.

Or a walk in the quiet of Pleasant Valley Park. 

 I’ve also made it a point to find some new places.  For all that it’s small and densely populated, New Jersey has the very best little pockets of beauty, with woodlands and gardens hidden in corners of quiet and sunshine.  I’ve discovered the gem that is the Reed-Reeves Arboretum. 

Just up the hill from my house is the Leonard Buck Garden.  

Being able to go for daily walks and then adding variety to them has been a treat for me, a reminder that being outside is a sure way to bring me the peace and tranquility that feeds happiness.

Grateful

Yesterday, JT and I made a trip west to San Diego.  We’re hanging out with family and later in the week I will see my college roommate.  It’s lovely to see my nephews and San Diego is straight up splendid.  

Most of all I am grateful for my ability to go places and do things; to move with ease.  For a woman who started the year barely able to walk 100 yards (and that in pain), I feel relatively invincible now.  This trip is about my goals for the post-surgery part of my year - getting past my fears of physical limits and re-learning the ability to like my body - but most of all this trip is about having fun and reminding myself that people love me in all my human frailty.  

That’s happy!

July 1: Cardinal Cap Hat

When JT was a little boy, he called his baseball cap his “ball cap hat.” The phrase stuck with me and though I rarely say it out loud, when I see him in a baseball cap, I think of it.  He remains a fan of hats and wears any number of them throughout the year.  For me, baseball caps spell fun and I’ve a new ball cap hat myself, one I acquired with Summer adventures in mind. 

My first trip of the Summer is tomorrow; I’m headed West to see family and friends.  I’ll wear my new ball cap hat and think of my Dad when I do.  That’s happy!

Monthly Book Report: Nightwoods

I read so many good books in June, that’s it’s nearly impossible to pick one as the monthly favorite.  I started the month finishing out the splendid The Covenant of Water and from there tore through The Lincoln Highway, Salt Houses, and Our Souls at Night.  I landed on Nightwoods by Charles Frazier toward the end of the month.  It’s the shortest of the novels on my June list but I stretched out my reading of it to savor the prose.  

I have loved each of Frazier’s novels. He writes of the South and of its people in ways that are both candid and sympathetic, never excusing their sins but always understanding their very human foibles.  His sense of place and joy in the landscape is palpable, a trait that was shared by the other novels I loved this month.  Nightwoods is the story of a young woman, Luce, and the young children she takes in after their mother - her sister - is murdered.  The children are traumatized but what they’ve seen and experienced and Luce - no stranger to trauma herself - gently cares for them.  Luce lives deep in the woods of Appalachia  in a world big in space and quiet but small in people. The people in Luce’s tiny community - an elderly neighbor and a gentle man with a crush on Luce - soon come to be the family that Luce and her niece and nephew need. 

There is suspense and tension in the novel and the characters richly drawn.  The story is told by a narrator who sees everything and though not jaded is honest, sometimes sarcastically so.  The sarcasm prevents the sweeter parts of the story from becoming cloying.  I’ve been reading library books of late but Nightwoods is a novel I purchased a few years back.  I’m glad that I own it because I will reread this story, if only to visit the splendid landscape once again.

In Praise of Morning Coffee

I love my morning coffee.  In the Summer, I drink my cups outside on the front porch.  The birds chirp, I inhale the aroma of the first mug of joe, and all is right in my world.  On the coldest and darkest of Winter days, I summon the urge to get out of my warm nest of a bed because of the siren call of fresh-brewed coffee and the way the hot mug warms my cold hands.  If there is morning coffee for me, I can be sure that all will be right in my world.

Cooking Journal: The Salad Season

The arrival of warmer weather means that unless there is rain, supper at my house is always served outside on the back deck.  Everything tastes better when its eaten al fresco and we’ll be out here for meals until the cold weather arrives.  And we’ll be eating salads.  I have a nearly endless array of salad recipes and I’m a wizard with homemade dressing so……come on over for salad.  

There’s peanut chicken salad.  There’s bbq ranch salad.  There’s salad with homemade blue cheese dressing.  How about salad with candied pecans, avocado, and champagne vinaigrette dressing?  Anyone up for hummus with cucumber-tomato salad?  

You name the salad and I’ll be serving it on the back deck until it's too dark or cold to eat out here.

Still Paying the Toll

The past two years have been hard.  JT’s post-graduation struggle, T’s departure, my father’s death, and then the disability and pain of my wonky hip…..  Each event was separate but they added up.  The break-up with T came just as my son was finding his equilibrium and at first the freedom from the daily anxiety of an unhappy and angry partner was a relief.  I was just beginning to come to terms with all that the break-up meant when my father died.  That was unexpected and knocked me for a loop.  Six months later, before I really found my footing in the face of the losses I had experienced, my hip gave out on me.  Six months of increasing pain and anxiety followed.  

I’m four months post-surgery and finally feeling that I have found my footing.   As I do that, some of the loss that I didn’t have time to fully grieve is now demanding its due.  I feel it most when I’ve had a hard day at work and on weekends.  Some nights it would be nice to have a partner who made supper and is there to help me talk through the struggles of my day. Weekends on my own aren’t quite hard or sad - I like being alone - but they are different from the life I had with T and I find they go better if I make plans.  

This summer, I feel as if I’m finally finding my way forward.  Slotted in among my usual chores, I plan activities for my weekends - enjoyable things like going to the farmers market, time at a local coffee house, finding a new-to-me park for walks, cooking supper for friends, taking up a new hobby (I’m learning how to embroider!).  I like the life I’ve built for myself but sometimes I miss having a companion.  I long for an excuse to dress up and go out.  I wish that someone would notice me and tell me that I look nice.  Mostly, I try not to linger on the losses or the sense that I am alone.  Some days that’s easier than others.

Gratitude Journal: Daily Walks

For years now, my favorite place to go for a walk is Colonial Park.  Its gardens, its roses and flowers, its expansive sky, and its woods have long been a place I visit to refresh my spirit and soul.  I missed walking there in the Fall and Winter, when my hip was too painful for any of my usual wanderings, let alone a long walk in the park.   

My sister knew this and during the post-surgery week that KO came to look after me, she drove me to Colonial Park.  I walked a familiar sunny path with my walker and still recall the feeling of hope that filled my heart:  my visits to this happy place could resume. 

The very first day when I could drive myself, I went to the park.  This Spring, I’ve gone for a walk at the park as often as I can.   I never tire of the expansive views and the spiritual salve this place brings me. That I can now walk as long as I like without pain still feels like a miracle and I feel so much gratitude to have this place back.  It’s one I never tire of experiencing.

Looking Beyond Anger

At the three month check-up for my hip, the Physician’s Assistant made the mistake of asking me if I was glad I’d had my hip replaced.  She’s the good PA - I truly like her - and I sensed this was a standard question meant to collect stories to help people considering their options when it comes to hip replacement.  So I played along - I have no regrets.  None.  The new hip has not only given me back my life but it’s eased all of the pain I experienced from hip arthritis.  I couldn’t be more thrilled with my new hip.

But the fact is I needed a new hip five months before I received it.  From September 2023, when my excruciating, disabling pain was diagnosed as arthritis that had deteriorated my hip so badly that only a replacement would do, to the point of hip replacement in mid-February - well it was a struggle.  A colossal, horrifying, miserable struggle.  That I was forced to lose 35 pounds and live with increasing pain and disability for 5 more months…..well, I am mad as hell about that.  I met the weight loss goal in 3 months by engaging in significant calorie restriction - effectively starving myself - and then continued the food restriction for another two months while I waited for a surgical date.  Try as I might, the misery of those months —— the growing disability, the non-stop physical pain, the reliance on opioids for rest (though not actual sleep), the misery and fear, a weight-loss requirement not supported by valid medical research, and living with the stark reality that my life didn’t matter because I am fat —— I find that very, very hard to set aside. 

Many, many people feel called upon to recognize the weight loss that occurred as I waited for surgery.  I know that they mean well but the need to lose weight so that I could receive life-saving medical treatment created a mental health crisis for me.  Long a woman who had come to value her fat body despite social norms, I became a woman who loathed her body.  The dysmorphia that I have lived with my whole life exploded in those months of food restriction.  Today, three months after the new hip, with much of my strength returning and the pain gone, there are still days when I cannot eat because I do not feel that I deserve to eat.  I remain unable to select clothes that fit because I cannot reconcile what I see in the mirror with the physical existence I actually have.  Those feelings linger more than I would like. 

I am doing the work to like my body again but some days are really hard.  I resent the fact that getting much-needed medical care meant having to shrink myself.  I am glad beyond measure to have my life back but I am also so fucking angry at what I had to go through. I don’t enjoy living with this anger so I am working on that as well, aware that forgiveness will restore my equilibrium.  I’m just not quite sure who needs forgiving. 

Style Journal: In Praise of Gauze Everything

Last week - the last week of the school year - we had some blazing hot afternoons.  I have recess duty every day after lunch and the kids play and hang out on the school’s turf field.  The temperature of a turf field in the full sun of a hot day approximates what I imagine the surface of the sun feels like.  Thank the heavens for my gauze skirt, a recent acquisition that has become my go-everywhere; do-everything favorite piece of clothing.  It’s lightweight, it’s slightly textured but still a single color, it’s navy blue, and it has pockets. *Hallelujah! *I wear my gauze skirt nearly every week and my mind has already packed it for all of my Summer travel plans.  I see gauze clothes everywhere these days and I find myself wondering how we ever lived without this warm-weather essential.  While the days are hot, bring me all the gauze clothes.

Back in the Swing of It (I Hope)

Now that the school year has ended, I’m faced with the prospect of actually having enough time to do all the things that need doing.  It’s a happy development.  I’ve got a back log of half written pieces for this blog and I’m glad to have time to finish them and write more.  Shorter work days and loads of time off mean that I’ll have time to travel, to garden, to go for longer walks, and to catch my breath.  As I approach August, and the one year anniversary of my hip’s collapse, I’m a little more grateful for all the good things in my world.  I plan to write about that, to record some of my most pressing thoughts about the medical establishment, and to renew my commitment to daily writing and more consistent posting.  The long days of June make everything feel possible, don’t they?  That’s happy!

Feeling Hopeful Again

New hip rehab is no joke and it’s taken me a while to return to blog posting.  But that’s not because things aren’t going well - quite the reverse, in fact.  I’ve started a whole bunch of posts and those half-written thoughts will become fully-developed posts in the coming days.  For now, let me simply note that I am back - whole and relieved and - most important of all - finally feeling hopeful again.  In time, I will wrestle with the complicated thoughts I have about what my life felt like as I waited for hip surgery.  I will post some serious thoughts about the gratitude I have for my sister and JT, who got me to the surgery and then through it to this other side.  All of that and more is coming.  I’m back, world, and I’ve got a lot to say!

Valentine, Party of One

Last week, I had one of those spiraling days of doubt that occur every once in a while.  It was Friday and I was physically and emotionally spent.  The pain and disability of my hip caught up with me like a fury spinning wildly.  Days like that are hard when you are a without a partner and I’ve had far too many of them lately.  The fact that the Valentine’s Day sucker-punch was just around the corner didn’t help. My sister’s support, some rest, and a good book got me over the hump. 

Today is Valentine’s Day and though I suspect I will forever be sad that I never found a partner willing (or able?) to love me through the hard parts of a relationship, I’m not dwelling on that.  I have Valentine treats for some friends and big plans to score some flowers for myself once I have a new hip and can walk into the shop and select a bouquet. As of today, I am 7 days from surgery. Tonight, I’ll open the Valentine treat I bought myself, raise a toast to me and getting through the hell of the last 6 months, and I'll remind myself that I am tough as nails when the need arises.  That will make for a sweet -  if untraditional - Valentine's Day and I'll take it.

Style Journal: Making My Peace with Pants

 As an adolescent - really as a tween - I learned that some clothes and styles were off-limits because of my weight.  Once the dreaded "not flattering" concern was uttered by my mom and grandmother, extreme self-consciousness set in.  A fear of being too fat, and therefore unworthy, took hold.  I remember dieting at the age of 12 when I weighed all of 125 pounds and was 5’3”.  After age 12, I didn’t go to public places where swimsuits were being worn.  Rather than reject the message that I was unworthy because of my body, I molded my life around the limits sent by that message.  For more than 25 years, I mostly refused to wear pants or shorts because I could not stand my appearance in them.  This avoidance continued long after a therapist explained to me that I have body dysmorphia.  She helped me to develop the tools to manage the feelings brought on by the dysmorphia and though I still experience an inaccurate view of my physical appearance, I understand it to be a thing that I don’t have to believe or accept.  So the dysmorphia exists away from my sense of self.  

All of this is relevant because my current disabled status has made pants a rather valuable asset in my world.  In the Winter, I wear tights with skirts and dresses.  But as my hip disability has worsened, the process of putting on tights in the morning became difficult and then unbearable.  This  weekend, I gave up Winter tights in exchange for pants.  They are loose-fitting pants - in a size too large, as is my way - but putting them on is manageable and doesn’t aggravate my crummy hip.  I think that the transition to pants has been made easier by the abundance of wide-leg styles.  I regularly buy clothes that are too big (see: coping with body dysmorphia) and wide-leg pants are a style gift.  I like them in various forms, though especially soft, flowy knits — pants my sister has named “dress sweats.” I think I will love them even after my hip has been fixed.  I’ll not call that the silver lining of the misery - there is not silver lining enough for what I’ve been through - but it is something.  

On Not Wishing Away Time

It has taken more than half my time on earth for me to learn the lesson that I must embrace life when and where it happens and not wish it away.  I learned the lesson the hard way, mostly after I conceived my son nearly 25 years ago.  By then, I’d spent a lifetime believing that there were things I couldn’t do or have because of who I was: a fat lesbian and a smart woman who scared the shit out of patriarchy.   Limits were set by society and for many years I accepted some of them. Becoming a mama was something I feared would be unavailable to me.  Against that particular perceived limit, I fought back.  When I became pregnant, I vowed that I would raise a child who always knew his value and worth and needn’t wait to love, or be loved, or live the life of his choosing.  In the subsequent years, I learned to take on other limits and not feel that I had to wait to enjoy the full measure of life.  I came to embrace wearing a swimsuit despite my imperfect thighs.  I came to love doing things on my own: movies, dining out, going to the gym, going to parks and museums on my own, even vacationing by myself.  If I wanted to do it, I could and I did.  It was empowering.

Then came the wonky hip.  Since last August, when the pain became suddenly unbearable, I have faced a world of limits brought on by doctors who denied me care because I’m fat.  I’ve rarely been a fan of modern medicine and this circumstance has turned my lack of enthusiasm into palatable dislike and distrust.  I am a woman who does not hate but if I made an exception to that rule, it would be for the medical field, which has almost never been my ally.  As I restricted food to lose weight and qualify for the hip replacement surgery everyone agreed would cure me, my dislike of doctors grew as their withholding of treatment shrank my world.  I resisted as much as I could but pain and sleeplessness are a toxic combination.  The last 6 months have mostly been miserable.  No longer able to walk very far, I have been confined to a life of home and work, my independence limited outside of my home (and even within it….going downstairs to do laundry is very hard for me; everything takes longer when you are disabled and in near-constant pain).  I have found myself wishing away my current existence in exchange for a future when things will be better, the exact approach to life I rejected so many years ago.  

With just under two weeks until surgery, I finally see light at the end of the tunnel.  With a hip replacement, I believe I will regain my independence.  I will once again be able to live my life on my terms.  Whether I will be able to let go of my anger at the 6 months of my life lost because of the denial of medical treatment remains to be seen. I’m only 56 years old.  I have many years left on earth, though not so many that I welcome my time being wasted by doctors who don’t seem to understand what an oath like “do no harm” actually requires of them.

Among the Trees: Sunshine & Hope

Most of January was damp and cold.  We had a smidge of snow - enough to earn a snow day - but mostly we had endless grey skies and rain.  I find January is a bleak month anyway, what with its late sunrises and early sunsets, but add in gloomy grey skies and my growing hip discomfort and the month had little to recommend it.  February was less than 48 hours old when it delivered blue skies and sunshine.  Though the cold persisted - it’s still Winter - the sun was welcome.  It’s also true that our days are lengthening, with an extra minute of sunlight morning and night and that helps.  Normally, Winter walks sustain my soul but my temporary disability has robbed me of that comfort.  On Saturday, when I could sit out in the back deck and turn my face to the sunlight, for a still-chilly 30 minutes, I felt hopeful.  I’m two weeks away from surgery and I am so ready for the return of walks in the woods.  Until then, I've had some sunlight and it was glorious.

The Countdown Continues

On Monday morning, I taught my classes and when I returned to my office, there was an e-mail from my surgeon’s office: my hip replacement was delayed, likely to February 28.  I was appalled.  It took a day of back-and-forth with the office, before we landed on a one-week delay.  Now my surgery is on February 21.  I’ve been waiting for relief since September and strictly speaking another week is just that - 7 more days - but it was another blow in an already demoralizing journey.  I made a last-minute appointment with my pain doctor to renew the meds that help me to get some sleep, updated my supply of ibuprofen and Tylenol for daytime support, adjusted my countdown calendar, and got back to life.  Today I have two pre-op appointments: testing at the hospital and a visit with the surgeon’s office.  Next week, I'll see my primary care doc for surgery clearance.  With 19 days to go, I am lslowly imping toward the finish line.

February 1: Cardinal in the Backyard

Years ago, my taught me that the sight of a cardinal was a visit from a loved one who had passed; a sign that all was well in the great beyond.  When I saw this cardinal on the fencepost in my yard a few weeks ago, I was glad.  

Tomorrow will be a year since my Dad’s passing.  I miss him.  I miss his voice on the phone; I miss his to-the-point e-mails; I miss his jokes and his laugh.  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been a full season of life without him in this world.   I can hear his political commentary in my mind, see him in my growing plants and garden plans, think of his outsized joy in his grandsons. I remember him by telling stories about him or using a patented dad-phrase.  It’s not enough - it never will be - but the memories are of a  man who loved and was loved; who had a good life.  That’s happy.

Monthly Book Report: Rules of Civility

This blog is now an Amor Towles appreciation blog.   

For the second month in a row, one of Amor Towles novels is the  source of my end-of-the-month book report.  This time, it’s Towles’ first book: Rules of Civility.  Set in 1930s New York, the novel is a reflection on the rules of old wealth and the world of hard-working young women seeking a better life.  The narrators Katey, the daughter of a Russian immigrant, who is making her way up the social ladder.  Together with her friend Evelyn, Katey befriends a young man, Tinker Grey, whose wealthy status and mysterious background mask his truth.  In the course of one year, 1939, that truth reveals itself.  

The story is told at a leisurely pace, never slow but not hasty.  The reader comes to enjoy the company of Katey and her keen observations and the story is layered with mystery.  Towles’ writing shows an eye for observation and nuance.  In Katey is a narrator who tells the truth as she sees it, with a hint of sarcasm that never feels careworn or mean.  The writing is simply first-rate and I loved the novel.