What’s working

It started as I was stepping out of the bathtub the other morning.  I slipped, one leg in, the other out, into a sort of bare-butt split that landed me down hard on the tile floor.  The only real injury I sustained was a badly stubbed middle toe.  But within two hours, the bruise was a brilliant black and purple and it hurt to walk.  I couldn’t put on a shoe.  My toe swelled and pulsed, as if my heart was beating inside it.

Wincing, I made it to my book group that evening, to a meeting the next morning.  But by then a few other things were going wrong.  A son called, in some trouble at school.  A wild storm of gusty wind and heavy snow knocked the power out, not only at our house, but at 300,000 other rural New England homes.  I drove around for a while on slippery roads, buying coffees I didn’t really want, in search of Internet access at cafes with wi-fi so I could get some work done.  No luck.

That night, as it became clear that power wouldn’t be restored any time soon, Steve and I returned to our cold, dark house, fumbled around for a flashlight, and gathered up a few things.  The house plants were dry as bone. A week’s worth of dirty laundry was piled in the bedroom.  I thought of the bags of summer raspberries and blueberries thawing in the freezer, and wondered why we hadn’t bought a generator after last year’s ice storm.  (But aren’t generators a bit like umbrellas?  Who buys one when it’s not raining?) Camped out at a friend’s house, I discovered that the “contact” part of my website hadn’t been functioning for a while, and that all e-mails addressed to me were apparently disappearing into some vast spam file in the sky.  (If you’ve written to me within the last three weeks and haven’t heard back, that’s why!)

By the end of yesterday, crews had removed the fallen trees from our road and the electricity was back, though it turned out that our heating system had failed.  Wearing long underwear, a hat, and my down parka, I fired up the gas stove, flushed the toilets,  watered the poor plants, and began to unpack and set the house to rights.  My neighbor Debbie stopped by, to fill her water jugs from our tap and see how we were making out.

“So many things aren’t working!” I complained, feeling exhausted and annoyed and sorry for myself.

“Yes,” she answered cheerfully.  “But think how many things ARE working!”

Of course, she had me.  Beyond the window, huge snowflakes were drifting slowly down, softening the hard edges of the world.  Inside, the water was running again and a flick of the switch brought light.  All over town, people were still waiting for power and ours was restored.  My toe had just about shrunk back to normal size.  The food in the freezer was still frozen.  And after a few phone calls and a $200 emergency visit from the heating contractor, I knew we would be warm again, too.

I scooped up the pile of laundry from the floor — summer clothes, the contents of our California suitcases.  And then I had to smile.  Suddenly, instead of seeing a pile of dirty clothes, I saw a reminder of our week’s worth of west-coast adventures and good times with friends old and new.  I looked around at our house, cold still, but just fine, full of  books and paintings and afghans and tables and chairs. . .the stuff of home.  I could rummage around in the refrigerator and find enough food for dinner.  The e-mails would wait. Yeah, I had to admit, a few things in my life aren’t working.  But I don’t have to look far to see plenty that are.

Today, the house is warm.  My son Henry has somehow fixed my website and retrieved the missing e-mails (answers to come soon!).  My toe has healed enough for me to put on sneakers and take a run.  A quick look on YouTube shows that my video of A Gfit of an Ordinary Day has been seen by nearly 800,000 people. And the book is selling slowly and steadily. After a good night’s sleep in my own bed, I’m feeling decidedly more cheerful.

Debbie, an e. coli survivor who understands more about chronic pain than anyone I know, just completed twelve weeks of IV iron treatments and still spends quite a few hours a week curled up with a heating pad.  She makes a daily practice of ignoring what’s not working and focusing instead on what is.  As always, I learn from her example.  Someday, maybe, I’ll get it.