About two weeks ago, the sun shone through after several days of rain. The soft sea air buoyed us as we left the RV for a bike ride, the first in several days. The boys and I had been stir crazy with the weather, and the RV gets tight in the best of times. Our bike ride took us to the Pismo State Park, right on the coast; as we rode the monarch butterflies, which winter over here due to the mild climate, flitted across our paths, their wings infused with the light of the sun.
I will remember this joyous bike ride with my boys for a long time, as it will be my last for several months.
We returned to the RV to get more school work done, and as the boys worked, Peter said he was going on a ride. I asked if I could go, too….more rather than less exercise is a good rule for me. He welcomed me; I threw my shoes on and, a smile on my face, stepped out the door, placing my left foot on the top outer step of the RV.
Apparently, I put my heel down on the edge of what turned out to be a sandy step…before I knew what happened, I was flying. I felt pain, but more shock of having fallen down the stairs, as I am not one who hurts myself much. When I got to the bottom, I felt that something was wrong; besides the heart pounding from the surprise, I looked down and saw that my right foot was turned the wrong way, and the end of my tibia, the strong inner leg bone that we see as our shin, poking unnaturally through the left side of my ankle.
I will spare you the details of my strange calm as I gave orders to my family members, the transfer to the hospital ER, the relocation of the ankle and the immediate surgery, all of which I am in the process of writing in great detail as therapeutic work. More of note is the inner process that has been accelerated due to the whirlwind destruction of my bodily innocence and the surrender required to allow other people to help you when you are accustomed to surviving on your own.
I have always been a very strong and healthy person, having very few accidental injuries in my life, relegated to the occasional burn or cut. Even in my rash of car accidents in my barely-present early twenties, I walked away without even a bruise. Never having broken a bone or been to the hospital except for birthing Jess and a small cut that required stitches when I was 11, this accident ‘broke’ my vision of myself as invulnerable. The healing at physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels that is unfolding inside me through this event is profound. To me, that’s the juicy stuff; to me, this is where the magic is.
My rigidity in my life has held me up when there was no one else to do it; my parents were actively abusive alcoholics, and there was no safe place for me to be vulnerable. I had to get tough to make it through my childhood, and I took that toughness with me into my growing life, perceiving through my filters of experience that the world was not a safe place. Of course, as a result of that filter being in place, I helped create more of that belief, which reinforced my toughness. Over time, my heart has closed except to those who have proven that I can trust them. My tests, although unconscious, are rigorous and thorough…my tests weed out those who might make a passing grade from the die-hards. Only those who truly and passionately love me unconditionally make it through my inner gauntlet. I am civil to the others, but they will never know the real me, as I don’t trust them to treat me with respect and safety.
And I put myself on the line in these tests; I share myself and make myself vulnerable, then watch what they do with what I have given to them. Some show me their trustworthiness right away by not being able to hear what I am sharing, or rejecting it outright. Others are a little “craftier”…they listen and appear to treat my sharing with tenderness and care, but later use it against me. I give the gift of myself to those who do not deserve my trust to prove to myself that they aren’t trustworthy. It is a back-asswards pattern of behavior learned when a child cannot trust the two people she depends on to keep her safe in the world. This event has brought this pattern into clear light, for which I am grateful.
I now have a bionic ankle, complete with “golden” plate and six “golden” screws (the golden is in my mental picture so that I can accept and make friends with the foreign objects in my body). I must remain “no weight bearing” for 8 weeks, at which point I will begin to learn to walk again. In the mean time, I hobble around on crutches and spend a lot of time with my foot up on the couch. Well, I was complaining about not finding the time to write…now I am writing more than ever. The insights are coming so thick and fast I can scarcely write them all down.
And so, in moments of extreme grace and clarity, I am actually grateful that this has happened. Oh, I have my moments of feeling like a victim, feeling sorry for myself, feeling angry and sad….but all of those are indications of a deeper healing in myself that can occur, if I am just willing to follow the pointers to the place inside where acceptance and insight abound.
Thank you, my right ankle, for making this sacrifice in service to the whole of me, my inner and outer community. Like our indigenous ancestors did in holy ceremony, you offered flesh to show how willing you were to put yourself on the line in order for healing to occur on the larger level. I humbly choose to make the most of this offering!
