Circling Back

The last time I read Wordsworth, I was in college. A lifetime ago.
This morning I re-read this, and it makes a sense it never made before:

The World Is Too Much With Us
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

I hear you, William.

Friday Summary

This is a blog post without great deep consideration or even careful editing -  but because it is the end of a long and challenging week, and it is seven days since my last post, and for once my body woke up ready to write before 4:30am, I thought I would take a moment before leaving for work to post something.

Here are the highlights of the week:
 * Tour for 60 at work Tuesday. Worked a 10 hour day. Made all-I-have-left-in-me-to-do breakfast for dinner twice, because the dog ate the first batch of pancakes.
 * Wednesday: spoke at an Apple Specialist conference (ASMC) in the Hyatt near SFO about Emotional Customers, followed by a stop in China Town on the way north for some ham sui gok (咸水角), then a trip to the bank, the DMV and the pet store. Getting affairs in order and getting a new chicken! Then a concert at the big Farmers Market in SR - the Youth Orchestra performed, although S. and the other bass player were met with challenges as the wind wreaked havoc with their music in spite of the clothespins provided.
  *Thursday: another tour at work.

This weekend promises to be busy too, but in a good way. Although I did volunteer to be a good daughter-in-law and make brunch on Sunday and now I'm wondering what I was thinking...!

Sciatica and Recoveryr

They say that youth is wasted on the young. Early in April I found myself thinking that more to the point, health is wasted on the sound. I’d taken three days of work, and then a forth, to stretch it out, while my youngest was on spring break. And because in the end we weren’t traveling anywhere, my “staycation” to- do list was long and ambitious. I wanted to complete the weeding of the back yard – a two-day task in and of itself – and organize my office, and landscape the front yard, cut into small pieces the branches we’d brought down from the mulberry tree, write & read (of course!) and paint the master bathroom. Instead, I found myself limited to whatever I could do while standing in one place while I contended with brutal sciatica. Somehow, perhaps due to several somehows, I had tweaked my back in more than one place and paid a heavy price for it for nearly two weeks.

The experience was frustrating on many levels. But it also was humbling, and as I mentioned, certainly made me re-appreciate what I had been capable of before the problem occurred. It also reiterates the importance of daily stretching, which I’d done faithfully during the 8-week Whole Life Challenge I completed mid-March, but only rarely since. Sitting was almost impossible, sleep was difficult except in certain positions for very limited periods of time. I knew that resting is an important part of healing, but it was hard to rest when the only thing that stopped the pain was standing or walking. There was one old Vicodin in the house that I took one night, and it helped. But apart from that, I prefer not to take meds, and the Tylenol I’d tried didn’t really touch the pain. But I am so very blessed to have a fantastic chiropractor and her equally fantastic partner, who helped me with adjustments and two Tui Na sessions respectively.

And as I write this, I am much, much improved. And it is May, already. A new month. And another day! I find myself feeling very grateful.