Baby stepping my way into my new "healthy bone regimen" while resting deeply

from all the intense and exhausting inner work of incorporating last month's news about my bones. 

All the wonderful green beings that I brought with me from my old house are growing and flourishing so abundantly here. Not just the indoor and outdoor plants that were already in pots, but also the ones I dug out of the ground and put into pots. Most miraculous of all has been the young Meyer lemon tree that was very radically pruned so that we could try transplanting it here. It took! And, despite a slow start as they readjusted to having much more sun all day, my roses are now producing prodigiously. With much larger flowers now than ever before. After seven months here, the green beings, Ms. Pretty and I couldn't be happier or more delighted with our new home.

For most of August and September I'd been grappling with a good deal of emotional upheaval. I'd had to find my way to assimilating the news of serious, worsening osteoporosis. And, as well, to dealing with the equally challenging process of sorting out how I wanted to work with what seems to be going on in my bones. October finds me having at last come to a place beyond all of the angst. I seem to be working comfortably and equably with my own energetic, physical and chemical treatment plan. No longer feeling fragile or frightened. The relief is enormous. So is the exhaustion!

I'm always amazed at how exhausted I feel at the end of a period of intense emotional inner work. This, even when I feel exhilarated by the work that I've done and by the place to which I've come. There seems so incredibly little acknowledgement in our culture for the energetic toll that deep inner work takes on one. So little respect for the need to rest and replenish after a cycle of hard processing. So little respect for “work” that seems invisible on the outside. For endless years in my own life, I was completely disrespectful of my tiredness after such a siege. I used to goad myself mercilessly to “get on with it!” Either because the crisis was over or because there ”was no reason to feel tired.”

Now I know better. I'm fiercely committed to honoring my tiredness. To making all the space I can find for the resting and replenishing that my body, mind and soul need after meeting such deep inner challenges. Even in the midst of my “life in the slow lane,” I find the need to slow even further.

All I seem to do during this resting time is baby-step my way into all the new additions to my wellness routines. Every day there is some little bit of Tai Chi (that I'm learning at a very slow pace). Then, some upper body weight-training exercises. Or, on alternating days, some floor exercises (for posture and bone strength) from a book called “Walking Tall.” Then, a bit of yoga that focuses on working my hips and lower spine. Several 10 minute breaks-from-gravity throughout the day, lying on my Body Slant. And, of course a walk/hike for an hour or two. All of it more than enough to fill my resting days!

I always thought that I'd hate weight training. That it would feel stupid and boring. Oddly enough, I find it quite meditative and enjoyable. It and the other new additions to my daily routine all involve lots of focus on deep, full breathing. It all feels quite nourishing and gentle. I let myself wander into the moments of doing this or that routine organically, spontaneously. I promise myself not to pressure or schedule myself around any of it. So, at random times through the day (or more usually, the night) I take out my weights or lay out my yoga mat or put on my Tai Chi shoes. And, some days when I never get to any of it, I have my own unconditional permission to take the break without giving myself any grief about it!

I'm amazed by how easily I've come to embrace all of this and, too, the taking of the Fosamax. Of course, this ease came only after I'd given myself weeks of room to rant and rage and storm and grieve intensely about all of it. After moving through so much releasing of all those turbulent feelings, I was able-finally-to surrender into this new reality and into beginning to work with it.

As I continue my new regimen, I'm reading The Myth of Osteoporosis, a book that radically challenges much of the current thinking about osteoporosis. It questions the meaning and reliability of DXA bone density measurements, the assumption of any causal connections between low bone density and increased risk of fracture, the point or wisdom of taking medication for improving bone density and the whole medical/pharmaceutical system of pathologizing an aspect of normal aging. Hmmm….

I'm just back from Florida (between hurricanes) after one of my four-times-a-year long weekend visits with my dad, step-mom, aunt and great aunt. For so many years, all of them have been doing extraordinarily well. Even into their mid-late eighties and mid nineties, with my dad in particular dealing with many physical challenges. In the past few months, all of them have gone though serious setbacks. All of them having to adjust to significantly decreasing capacities, either mental or physical. They all were dealing with mild to moderate depression. Coping, but feeling despairing of the changes.

One of the saddest realities that all of them (and their further extended family in Florida) are dealing with is the crumbling of their mutual support system. As distance and night driving become impossible, they are no longer able to physically show up for each other in emergencies.

All of them struggling now with how and when to decide to rearrange their lives to incorporate more outside care and help. The challenge is how to figure out when it's time to choose yielding privacy in exchange for the safety and support of shifts of aides/caregivers in their own homes or in assisted living facilities.

It's hard to watch their struggles, to witness their increasing despondency. Hard to accept how utterly useless I am in helping them to cope with these difficult choices. All there is to do at this moment is to listen and love and care and be available. It's easy to forget that simply witnessing, listening, loving, caring and being available are in themselves supportive. So much the inner and outer cultural pressure is to “do” something. Even when there clearly is nothing to “do.”

All of it gives me pause. Raises questions for me about envisioning my own eldering years. Particularly as a single woman with fierce needs for solitude and issues around independence. The questioning continues to float in and out of the forefront of my consciousness. Even as I come home to being in the middle of only what is in front of me at just this moment.

For many years I've cherished the fantasy of a converted children's camp in the country somewhere. My dream has been of several small self-sufficient, accessible cabins in which many of us independent, solitude-loving eldering women might live separately yet within community. There'd be a main house/lodge for guests, support personnel, communal meals, communally shared “equipment” of various sorts and a community room with fireplace and libraries. There we might choose to hang out when we were into sharing time with others. There'd be communal gardens for growing organic food and the possibility of individual gardens as well.

A recent stumbling upon the TumbleweedsTiny House Company web site has fed the fantasy. The site offers several delightful tiny custom built cabins that are planned for sustainability and flexibility. These simple little cabins would make it possible just to find land with perhaps a dwelling that could be the community house. An easier prospect, it would seem, than finding a disused children's camp.

The vision has always included the comings and goings of younger women who might choose for a time to live among us. To spend a season of sharing wisdom and experiences and stories. Perhaps even for informal gatherings that might have a particular focus. For lively, creative and empowering exchange across the generations.

The fantasy always feels exciting and nourishing at first. Then I think about the process of making it real, of gathering a community to manifest it. The me that can't even imagine the business of living with one other person can hardly conceive of the amount of collective processing such a venture might involve. That's where the excitement usually fizzles. Still, the vision returns again and again. So, who knows? It still is a more delectable vision than any assisted living setting I've heard about.

The big news here is that I've heard from the agent after four months of waiting patiently!

 “Date: 9/29/05
Subject : manuscript:

Well hi there. Oh, I've been pondering this manuscript - and you - for weeks and weeks. I am not ignoring you - I promise - I'm just not sure exactly what the right next step is. Here is where things stand, which I'm going to tell you with as much honesty and love as possible:

I love this writing. I love your stories. I devoured the manuscript in one sitting. As a reader and an individual, I loved it, and felt inspired.

As an agent, I'm not sure how to sell it. It will come to me - it usually does - but right at this moment, I don't know how to position it. Why does that matter? Because otherwise it gets lost, and doesn't find its rightful home.

I'm searching for the “hook,” the thing that I can say to publishers “this is what makes this book stand out - this is how you can sell it to booksellers and promote it and all those other great things you do.” I need to find that one thing that it is about - the thing that it promises a reader that makes it unique.

So. I want, if this is ok, to continue to ponder this. I feel a little stuck, but I may hopefully unstick soon…

Tell me your thoughts.

 Love, Debra”

So! Now I'm back to being patient again. Trusting the Grandmothers' timing on it all. While I wait, I've been editing the bulletin board journal columns from the past five years. Starting now to enter the edits into the computer texts before gathering them all into a second manuscript. Again without timetable, agenda or expectation.

It's been an amazing week of reliving the past five years of my journey. Of seeing how intense things have been more recently after so many earlier seasons of quiet gentleness. Of honoring how profoundly committed my life is to living deeply in the middle of all my feelings, no matter what.

Originally published October 2005