Oh....My Beautiful Garden

When I returned to Catalina after being gone for so long, I knew one of the things I would have to confront was the state of my beloved gardens.  The only people here while I was gone would never have  noticed (or cared) that a plant was withering away and dying from lack of water.  Actually, it wasn't as bad as I had envisioned.  It had rained several times while I was gone, so it was more a matter of overgrowth than anything else.  I did loose one Thyme plant that I'd grown from seeds because it just wasn't mature enough to handle the long dry periods, but I couldn't really complain.

Every time I walk out my door I am reminded that I am unable to kneel down or bend over my beautiful plants to care for them.  The weeds have grown in all the spaces between the bricks.  Only I haven't forgotten that the bricks are there I think.  One plant has grown across more than half of the walkway I use to get to my washer and dryer.  Every time I step around it I cringe and think "one day I'll feel well enough to get my shears out and cut it back".  I've been home for fourteen days and it hasn't happened yet.

Before I got sick, the garden was one of my favorite, most peaceful places to be.  When I went through a very difficult time, at the end of an eight year relationship, the garden saved me.  I spent so much time there and felt so at peace touching the plants and dirt.  The two cats that have lived in the garden for the last three or four years sat near me while I pulled weeds and trimmed plants. 

I so miss being with the plants and the dirt.  I hardly see the cats anymore and the garden is overgrown and messy looking.  It feels like a symbol for all the dimensions of my life that have withered away or have been overgrown like the bricks in the garden.  Meanwhile, I watch helplessly, as it becomes wilder and wilder, returning much to the state it was in when I first moved here five years ago.

Alpha Nutrition Diet - Day 6

I have actually made it through six days of the Alpha Nutrition Program.  I may be feeling better but I'm not really sure.  Six days of ingesting only Alpha ENF, white rice, rice crackers, water and apple juice.  It's definitely getting harder to resist other foods.  Especially when I have to prepare meals for my daughter.  I went for a walk this morning and I felt a little stronger than usual.  I pushed myself to walk a little faster than normal and although I had to keep pushing the entire time, I was able to maintain a fairly decent (for me) pace.  I just hope I didn't push myself too hard and become useless for the next three days.  It has happened before.  In fact, the very first time I got really sick was the day after I had totally over-exerted myself.

Before I got sick, I used to walk about two miles a day up (and down) slopes with an average grade of 9.5%, which I think is pretty steep.  I would say I was in better shape than the average person but not an athlete by any means.  While I was pregnant with my daughter I wasn't able to exercise at all due to extreme fatigue - like, couldn't stand up long enough to take a shower, fatigue.  Because I wasn't exercising and I was eating the same or more than average, I gained weight.  I gained fifty pounds during my pregnancy!  Miraculously, when I left the hospital, thirty of those pounds had disappeared (ten of which was my beautiful daughter) but I still had twenty to go and I was determined to loose them. 

About two months after my daughter was born, I started to get my energy back.  It was very short-lived though.  I started exercising again, struggling up those same hills I used to walk with ease.  One day, determined to get out for a walk, I took my daughter in her stroller, since my husband was at work and walked up an even steeper hill than I usually do.  My muscles and lungs burned the whole time but I kept pushing that stroller higher and higher with thoughts of me in my pre-pregnancy jeans as a motivation.  I had clearly over-done it.  When I got to the top my face was bright red, I was covered with sweat and could hardly catch my breath.

The very next morning I woke up feeling like I had the flu.  My whole body ached, I felt like I had a fever (but didn't) and I could hardly get out of bed from weakness.  That was two years ago and those symptoms are still here and more have joined the repertoire along the way.  Although the severity of my illness has increased and decreased over the last two years, it has never gone away.  I have always thought, maybe that uphill climb while pushing the stroller had set something off, but I'll never really know. 

Can hardly lift my arm. So scared

Still in bed. Don't have strength to lift my head from the pillow. Sorry about the fragmented sentences. Typing this on my iPhone with only one eye opened. Can type a couple words then have to close my eye and rest again. Eye lids are so heavy I can only hold them open for a minute or so, then they close.

My husband is in the other room. Must think I'm just sleeping late. I'll have to text him since I can't call out to him. I feel like I must be dying. Would be a relief from this - whatever it is that's slowly rotting my body.

As I lay here in pain and profound weakness I hear the joyful cheers of spectators outside my window as athletes in a triathlon victoriously cross the finish line. Oh my god.

Freida Kahlo

I just watched the film, Frieda, one of my favorites, yet again.  Firstly,  BRAVO Salma who's performance is amazing.

Freida Kahlo is one of my favorite artists.  I think what I love most is the candidness of her work.  Every time I view her art, I suddenly feel as though she were a childhood friend and I had lived her experiences with her.  Each of her paintings speaks to a very specific instance of suffering she endured.  Whether she painted about her relationship with Diego Rivera, the loss of her unborn child or most profoundly, her trolley accident and the years of pain caused by it, her emotions bleed through each canvas with disturbing familiarity.

At the end of the movie, a scene which portrays the last days of Freida's life and which I have viewed countless times, had an unforeseen effect on me this time.  Completely bed bound by that point in her life, the scene takes place in Freida's bedroom with Diego entering to visit at her bedside.  He says her name and she responds, "I don't think there's any Freida left in here".  I was watching the movie with my parents and husband and suddenly found myself choking back my emotions.  Tears flowed and I tried to hide them with my hand.  The scene had subconciously reminded me of a recent conversation with my therapist where I told her that I felt like a shell of who I once was.  I thought of all of the things I had done and places I had gone and it was as though I were recalling a character in a novel.  Sometimes I can't even remember what it felt like to hike to the top of a hill and it was only two and a half years ago.

I'm certainly not comparing my experiences to those of Freida Kahlo or implying that I can begin to imagine what she endured, but at that moment I really felt like I understood her statement in that scene more than I ever had.  I never really appreciated how much my physical body and it's strengths or limitations dictated who I was as a person.  It may sound naive but it's true.  I was hoping to learn this lesson in my seventies rather than my thirties but I suppose every lesson is a good one somehow...well it sounds good anyway.