The rains have begun. We hung the storm windows, brought in all of the garden art and chairs, made hazelnut pancakes for breakfast, and read the New York Times by the dining room stove while laundry dried around us and the cats napped. We are not sure we are really ready for the Rainy Season, but it is ready for us.
My back hurts. Right where all of the moving parts come together at the base of the spine. It’s stiff. I can walk and cook dinner, but not bend over or turn to far either way. I am not really complaining, although it is annoying. It has been worse—a few winters ago, my entire pelvic ring seized up, compressed some nerves and arteries, and took five weeks to settle down. I didn’t sleep through an entire cycle of the moon and could barely walk. This is not that. I am grateful. And I have an appointment already with the woman who undid all of the tightness two years ago on Tuesday.
But I am wondering, why my back, now?
I’ve had reoccurring pains before. Urinary tract infections that lingered and flared up for four years, until I knocked it out with a nasty sulfa drug that made me so ill I had to leave work in the middle of a Saturday rush. I lost my voice regularly for years when I first started teaching, once for two weeks. I’ve had neck pain that made my hands go numb and a weird shoulder clicking that I finally cleared out by lying on the floor and making snow angels over and over. Migraines have knocked me out while back packing or when I did not get enough sleep. All of these pains feel related, in some deep way, to stress on that part of the body and all have moved on to bother someone else. This will, too.
But why my back, now?
Is it sitting too much in chairs that are too big for my frame? There was a six hour council meeting last Monday night and then four late afternoon meetings of an hour and a half to two hours each, after several days of conference in Portland. Am I sitting the wrong way in my chair, where my legs dangle above the floor sometimes? Was it the grand tug of two huge pieces of black plastic mulch off of the school garden so we could begin to prep the beds for blueberries in the spring? My book bag banging into my spine? I do not know. But, as my actions are limited for this week, at least, I’ll be spending some time considering the problem.
What is my back telling me?
One night, I was waiting for the bus on the downtown transit mall. Because I had no money, I had started carrying a loaf of bread from my job at Great Harvest in my backpack. If someone asked me for money, I gave them the loaf. It had been a long day—I worked for nine hours baking bread then came downtown to teach an adult education GED class in the basement of the Pioneer Place Mall. My timing was off—I just missed the bus. It was winter but not too cold and not raining.
A man sidled up to me, holding a sign “Spare Change? Anything helps.”
“No,” I said, “but I have a loaf of bread.” I held out the round, whole wheat loaf. He smiled.
“We thank you,” his next sign read. As I nodded, he reached into his collar and brought out a white pet rat. We smiled at one another and he slipped off into the night.
I was in Portland last week for a conference. My room had a beautiful tree right outside the balcony; crows woke me up the first morning, gossiping with one another about local food services. I walked the downtown streets for several hours—it is not a Hellscape. It is not a War Zone. It looks a great deal like it did that night, thirty years ago, when I handed over a loaf of bread to a homeless man and his companion.
