Patience is a virtue

 I hurt my knee nearly three weeks ago. I think I did it in a yoga session. I hadn’t done yoga for several years. I only knew I’d hurt it when I woke up the next day to find it swollen, painful and unsteady. I hoped if I put ice on it and had it elevated occasionally it would return to normal, but it didn’t. 

So a week later I saw a doctor and she diagnosed what I’d suspected: a pulled ligament. And then she said it could take up to twelve weeks to heal. I imagined no cycling, no walking, no gardening for twelve weeks. It was such an awful thought in the second half of an iffy summer that I chose to believe it would take only three. I had the same injury 30 years ago and it was fine after a  fortnight - I’m sure it was.

For the first week after seeing the doctor I was strict. I cancelled the exhibition I was going to have at home, and I sat around in the house or the garden with my leg up. I was fed up. Really fed up. I felt as though I was wasting my life just sitting around.

From Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day

I couldn’t paint with my leg up. I could read and knit and watch telly, and do some sketching, and friends came to see me - which was lovely - but I was fed up. No exercise! How was I going to get my endorphins? And this was the summer that I’d waited so long for!

My knee is much more stable now, and I can do half an hour’s gentle gardening at a time. I can cycle on the flat for half an hour with no ill effects. I am pacing myself and trying to be patient and being sensible and it’s hard: I am not a patient person. 

But I am thankful for so much - Dave, my family, my friends, where I live. 

I’m sitting in bed writing this but the Trail beckons…it is a few minutes away and it has such a small gradient that I call it flat. I’m going to get up and go just for half an hour. Wish me patience and common sense, dear friends. I am not known for either.

An early self portrait.