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I've been posting some about my November ankle fracture & the lessons that have come along with with it. (Here's a snapshot: no more cast & I can take the "boot" off when sitting down"🎉). It's interesting to me, how the lessons percolate into my awareness their own time.

Then this morning, stretching the injured joint gently, I had a surprise, a visceral flash of the moment of the break, something I somehow haven't *really* revisited. And I was struck with such grief it took me by surprise.

Not grief for myself or for this long recovery or for the things I haven't been able to do, but a more metaphorical grief (?)...

...or maybe grief for a bigger whole. "This is catastrophic collapse" said the voice in my head. This is what it *feels* when you push a system beyond its tolerance. When the foundations go out. I remembered the popping sound of the break.

Of being suddenly on the ground. Of the living structure that has held me up for more than five decades floppy at the end of my leg, unable to respond to the commands of my brain.

Ankles break, foundations of things have been going out underneath living beings on earth as long as there has been life. As my friend says, babies cry, people die. Species come to ends. Homes burn. But not at this rate, not at this pace, this pace which part of us knows is only getting started.

I wish I had some clear "and therefore" for you, some practical lesson for myself or for you, but I don't, for now. I just have this body sensation, a new knowing to my mostly healthy body. There are limits. Things collapse beyond them. The foundations can go out on a sunny day.

The snap happens in seconds. The recovery, if there is one to be had, takes much longer.

I don't have a practical step for you, but maybe I do have something. A wish or maybe it is a prayer:

May the breaks be survivable, may the lessons be headed, may we help each other through, and may we find the collective strength to stop the forces pushing us beyond, ever beyond, the safe limits, the livable tolerances. May we bolster the foundations.