Tuesday, May 5, 2020

To wear, or not wear, the scarves, and other musings

My sister had lent my scarves to a friend who had cancer and wanted to know if I wanted some back or whether they would set off PTSD. I wasn't sure about the PTSD, so I said I'd give it a try. They came the other day. I picked one up, unfolded it, and made a bandit-style mask out of it. I folded it up and put it back in the pile. I'm still not sure. I can actually sense myself back wearing it. They served me well, so I don't feel bad about looking at them. But I'm not sure about wearing them. 

With Emily
People used to tell me, when I was bald, that my head head a very nice shape. I never knew exactly what to say about that. Thank you, I guess, but I didn't have much to do with it. When I was bald and shuffling along, Diane said I looked like more like my father than when I had hair. I always thought I looked more like him than my mother. It was OK with me that she said that. When I got out of the hospital and needed to learn how to walk again, Joe said that when I was shuffling my feet I looked like my father. My mother used to say, "Al, pick your feet up." That morphed into Joe saying "Mom, pick your feet up." I don't know why it was so hard for me to do it. Maybe because my legs had been swollen due to the kidney failure (like tree trunks or elephant legs, I couldn't decide which) and they had lost their muscle from all the time in bed. The ankle weights to wear while walking around the house helped. When running these days, I still feel like I don't pick my feet up high enough. If I try to change it, though, it messes up with my stride. My stride is my stride, I guess. 

Regarding masks, we wore them when going on the bike trail from Holyoke to Easthampton the other day. It wasn't too crowded, so at first I felt OK about it. But only about half the people were wearing masks. In hindsight I don't feel good about it, so I'm not going to do it again. Running around South Hadley feels safer. There aren't as many people. Though this morning I wore a mask when walking the dog and noticed more people out than I have seen later in the day. None of them were wearing masks. I felt like I had to dodge them. 

Many people are understandably having bad dreams. I actually had a good one. Most of my dreams about running or tennis are anxiety dreams. In the dreams, I'm about to run a race and realize I have forgotten to put on sneakers. I get lost and lose the route. (This actually happened once, in Holyoke, at the Talking Turkey.) I'm late to a tennis match, or I'm going to the wrong club and when I get to the right club, I'm too late and they've already replaced me.


In a recent good dream about yoga, my inner teacher was telling my inner critic to lighten up. (Not sure how that works.) To back up, I don't have a good relationship with chair pose. I feel like I get it right but when I try to integrate my arms it goes all wrong. In the dream, I was in a yoga class (real life, not Zoom) and we were all in chair pose. The teacher said my chair pose was good.

Here's something I wrote about the benefits of actual chair yoga, and here's something I wrote about the benefits of having a dog.

On May Day, I joined in my first rally and caravan for nurses and other front line responders. I had the idea for my sign, and Katie made it for me. We went past the Amazon fulfillment center in Holyoke and past Providence Behavioral Health Hospital, to protest plans to discontinue inpatient mental health services. To say the least, this is the worst time do such a thing.

The caravans happen every Friday. I plan on joining in again. 

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