My computer died on me so I’ve been out of commission for a few days but all is well now. I’m not sure I like to admit that I’m now that person that feels out of sorts without a working computer in their life. Not sure when that happened but it’s weird to think of how many times I reached for it only to remember, nope, not working.
And as for this traction gig, I missed my routine with the computer to get me thru the twenty minutes. I moaned how I had to keep my thoughts while in traction to myself! It’s kind of crazy how much I’ve grown to depend on the process, and then there’s the practical side, even something as simple as looking for a zip code you’d have thought the world had ended because I couldn’t search for it on-line.
I’ve tried to blame it on the doldrums of January and the constant color of the sky that resembles dirty snow but I think it’s more than that, I mean for pete sake for the walls to feel like they’re closing in because I can’t type on the computer, yikes, I’m addicted. Along with all my other health issues, now I have to recognize and admit that I’m addicted to my laptop. Where do you go for that meeting?
Ok, before I look that up on-line I’m going to just be happy for a second. I once again have the world at my fingertips while I’m sitting here in traction and that feels good. I like that connection, I embrace that connection. If that means I’m relying too much on the internet in my life I may just have to say, yes Dr. Phil, I’ve substituted my television addiction, that’s where I am right now, sorry, gotta go check email.
Author Archives
It’s the little things
Postage stamps have so much power, with them you can mail anything, anywhere. Well, almost anything, excluding the list of stuff that hangs on the wall of most post offices that are big no nos, but it’s still a cool idea to me to think that with just a few stamps you can mail something pretty much anywhere. One of my first “jobs” as a child was to go into the post office and buy a “book of stamps please.” I learned at an early age that stamps are powerful, you can mail a letter or a birthday card, pay a bill, send a package, exciting things can happen when you have plenty of stamps. I know the world is quite a different place than when I first learned how much could happen when you licked the back of a tiny stamp, attached it to an envelope and threw it in a mail box, and then of course, double checked that it slide in there, it’s all exciting stuff. But now a days when you can pay bills on-line and send an e card around the world it seems stamps are less and less popular. Yet it’s still true when you need a stamp you can not find a substitute to place on that mail, even gluing your money to it is meaningless. If you need a stamp you still have to get a stamp and there lies the power. Yesterday I was waiting in line at the post office to buy several books of stamps because I was completely without stamps for days and therefore felt out of sorts, powerless. As the little girl in front of me counted to her surprise, ten people in line I was oddly comforted that some things don’t change as much as we think. We still need stamps, some folks still mail packages, some people still pay their bills the old-fashioned way, some of us still wait in line and some little girls have it as their chore to buy stamps.
I know there are plenty of ways to deal with mail these days and stamps are nearly out of vogue but I’m sentimental when it comes to some things and today as I’m making my list of things I’ll do when I finish traction I feel powerful because I now have in my possession three books of “forever” stamps.
Molder, and I don’t mean as in Scully and Mulder……
I’m working on a jigsaw puzzle, haven’t done one in a long time. It’s good practice for my hands. When I was a child I enjoyed them and often received one every year for Christmas. My siblings used to tease me that I “molded” the pieces to fit. I always disagreed but I found myself last night trying extra hard, “molding” a piece to see if it would work where I needed it to, I guess old habits die-hard. Puzzles are one of those things that when you don’t do them or think you are beyond interested in them have the power to pull you in. Everyone that passes by a puzzle on the table has a comment or a suggestion. It’s fun to see someone with initial disinterest so pleased with themselves as they immediately find a fit and walk away. They are simple things that are good for many things. I find that when I’m working on one I’m either immersed in only thoughts of the puzzle or my mind is relaxed and wandering as it often does here in traction or I’m single-handedly solving some of life’s big problems! Puzzles have power and I like them. They seem old-fashioned and dated and I like that about them too. They are easy-going and stress free and good for fingers that sometimes are numb. I may be a “molder” from way back but that’s how I roll in the puzzle world.
Mirror, mirror on the wall…..
Did you ever catch your reflection in a mirror and not recognize yourself? I’ve had that experience before while shopping, I look up in the chrome of a clothing rack and think who’s that, only to realize seconds later that its me! My hair will have fallen differently than I wear it or my face has a look I’m not used to seeing on myself and then I’m surprised at the image I see reflecting back. Today I saw a quick glimpse of my head reflecting in the screen on the computer, I’ve not seen myself in traction and I was a bit taken aback at how odd it looks. My face had a rather blank look and my hair is pushed back with the straps of the gizmo wrapped around. I looked like a person in an advertisement for a neck traction device, very serious, very official. That strikes me funny because that doesn’t feel like me at all, but maybe on some level I take this traction business very seriously. I guess the fact that I’m sticking with it indicates that I have some level of commitment to it and I know that without it I’d probably not be able to type this. So recognize me or not I’m sitting here looking back.
2010 with a slash thru it
It’s still that time into the new year when I write the date and realize it’s no longer the past year, remembering after the fact that this year I’m living in is no longer 2010. After I realize my error I have some options as to what to do. I usually just put a slash thru the old year or it’s easy enough this year to just try to write over the old number, just make a 0 into a 1, it’s trickier than making 09 into a 10. I’ll have to do this well into the new year and then weeks from now I’ll finally remember and accept that we are indeed living in 2011. Then some random time later, like March 14 or July 27th I’ll do it again and I won’t have the excuse of just having a few days into a new year under my belt. The older I get the more the days and weeks and years are blending together. But maybe it’s more than that, maybe I have trouble with change. I’m not sure it’s anything that deep or complicated, maybe I just don’t concentrate too well. Anyhoo, it’s a new year and I’m in traction and I’m working on two years into this gig. Some day maybe I’ll quit counting how long I’ve been at it and just truly accept that it is what it is and even though it’s a new year traction is coming along with me.
Well, nothing too exciting here but I’m hanging in and trying to remember what year it is……have a good one, no matter what year it is for you.
Fa la la la la traction
Merry Christmas! Here I am all strapped in on Christmas eve, working traction into my day. Should have gotten one of those reindeer headbands with antlers, would have been very festive and a nice compliment to the strap around my head and neck. Seriously though, much to be happy about these days. Thanks for reading and all the best to you and yours!
Overloaded with good cheer.
I saw this Dad in the grocery store holding what appeared to be his four-year old daughter and at the same time he was trying to push a cart built for children which was stacked full of very real food. I just pictured her insistence at using that particular cart when they arrived at the store and he agreed, in addition to making her happy it would avoid any immediate hassle. Yet in reality five minutes into the shopping experience it was clear that cart size wasn’t cutting it. She had bailed on walking but he was still hanging in there with pushing the thing. Every so often he’d reach down from his tall frame to tap the cart, giving it a push so it would go gliding forward. He’d then take three paces to catch up with it before he had a chance to trip over it. It was all in the timing, his speed was impressive and as he listened intently to the little girl ramble on, you’d never guess he really could benefit from a bigger cart. He may have been overloaded but he was going with the flow. I think that’s a real skill, to just go with things when they aren’t necessarily easy, when there very well may be a better way, but you do it for the good, you do it because it makes someone else happy.
Maybe that’s what this time of the year is all about, putting ourselves out, going the extra mile for someone else’s happiness, maybe even for a stranger’s, all the better. It’s a very cool thing to see love in action. So as I’m doing my traction today I hope to bring you some good cheer and glad tidings with this post.
Feeling groovy, but not.
I’ve been in the groove lately with traction. I feel like I’m really in a manageable routine and even though it’s uncomfortable and tedious and sometimes a bit too much on the painful side I’m really doing ok with it. For the first time I’m allowing myself to even think ahead a week or two and believing, I can do this. Looking back if someone had told me that I’d be so “ok” with it, so compliant with traction I wouldn’t have dreamed it, yet now that I am, it’s so freeing.
BUT, (why is there always a but, anyway)can I tell you my new thought, rather new fear, it’s that I’ll be all content in accepting this, rather than resigned to it, I’ll be as fine as I think a person can be who straps their head and neck in traction several times a week and yet, it will stop working. I’m not sure if this is an irrational fear. It’s just lately the more I do traction the more it feels like I’ve plateaued. The clerk at the pharmacy had to come out from behind the counter to push the key pad for me since my touch wouldn’t push the machine to the next step, yeah, the tired fellow customers in line where real happy about the delay in that moment too, like what’s with the chick who can’t figure out how to use the key pad. Oh and let me tell ya, there was this moment the other day when I couldn’t hit the digits with enough pressure to turn off the security alarm. That got my attention, probably the next door neighbor’s too, definitely got the attention of the alarm company but fortunately not the police’s.
So the new year could prove as interesting as ever but my wish is not to get too far ahead of myself in the fear department, to just take this all as it comes. Like I began this post, I wouldn’t have believed I could come this far with my attitude, or rather to this place in “Thoughts In Traction” as I have, so maybe I shouldn’t terrorize myself with the “what if’s” just yet. Instead I’d rather think of the new career possibilities, just think how “useful” I could be to someone if I develop the skill of not leaving fingerprints!
So I’ll leave you with a cliffhanger, stayed tuned, will I use my new skill for GOOD or EVIL?
Only time will tell.
Distraction, concentration, procrastination all in one little day.
Did you ever impatiently wait for something to bake in the oven only to then realize you hadn’t turned it on? Did you ever take your recipe with you to the grocery store and be so intent on making sure you bought every ingredient that you spent ten minutes looking for sour milk before you realized it was SOUR MILK?! Well, that’s been my attempt to be productive, what a nut I am. It has been a snowy couple of days and maybe the barometric pressure is throwing me off, who knows but I should definitely not be operating heavy machinery today so it’s good that traction is on the light side when it comes to mechanical things. I have a list of things to do a mile long like many do this time of year and I’m pretty much only thinking about the fun stuff. I’m going to make an old recipe of my Mom’s and Grandmother’s that I’ve never made before, I’m hoping it will be a success if I remember to pre heat the oven or at the least turn it on. So wish me luck or maybe considering everything I should wait until tomorrow.
If Life gives you lemons……
We’ve all heard that saying, how to make the best of a bad situation, well today I heard a child trying to do just that. A Mom and her two daughters were shopping in the same aisle as I was and one of the girls asked their Mom what something was, the Mom responded, “That’s coal, it’s a lump of coal. It’s what Santa leaves for bad boys and girls, for kids that misbehave like you and your sister…. and, if you and your sister don’t start acting better you’re only getting coal for Christmas!” The child stood there quietly as if she was deeply contemplating what her Mother had just said and then she asked, “Mom, can you eat coal?”
I did my best to keep my laughter to myself because the Mom looked at me with a look of, “if you laugh, you’ll get coal too!” So I turned away from them and tried hard to remain quiet but just then the little girl walked over to me and said, “Hi.” I wanted to say, you are one awesome girl but I thought the Mom might hit me as she had just threatened to hit the other child, so I smiled and said hi back and left the aisle.
I started to think though about how we have all this stuff we tell children and this child basically said, hey, if coal is all I get then I’ll make do, I’ll make coal lemonade. So today sitting here strapped in I’m making traction lemonade and it’s not so bad.
Thoughts In Traction.... 