Whining – Martha Spong

Back to Sleep

March 10, 2008 Martha Spong

I’m still fretting over my sore and tingly back and my numb and now sometimes painful hands. I’m told that overly tight muscles can pinch a nerve and cause the sort of trouble I’m having.

I feel very middle-aged.

Oddly, I’m sleeping pretty well, I just wake up feeling weird and numb.

Last night I tried to sleep without a pillow. I’m one of those people who builds a mountain of pillows and squooshes them around until the right set of qualities has been achieved: height, softness, receptivity, firmness, yes, I realize some of those are in conflict with others.

Pure Luck finds my affinity for multiple pillows rather hilarious.

But remember when babies were allowed to have pillows and sleep on their tummies? I must have been one of those babies. My children seem to sleep flat on their backs, because, guess what? I put them down on their backs. (That whole "Back to Sleep" thing came in when #1 Son was a baby. I remember re-training myself, since my impulse was to put him on his tummy. Probably what my mother told me to do. Probably what she did with me.)

I discovered that I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m flat on my back. I also think you have to relax completely to sleep in such an open and vulnerable position. Even so, I’ll be trying again tonight, to see if that might help.

Meanwhile, numb and painful hands are not lifting weights. This past week has been a disaster where physical activity is concerned, between the attempts to walk on icy surfaces and the eschewing of the gym. I am trying to remind myself that spring will come, and I will walk outdoors in temperatures that don’t hurt my bad ear, and that no person can do everything, every day.

Right?

Here’s a little Rumi for what ails me:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

I really don’t want to go back to sleep, to slip into a lethargic food-induced coma. I want to be awake. But apparently that conscious wakefulness involves dealing with the disappointment that comes with a middle-aged body or a temporary (hopefully) strain or injury, finding a way to walk through it even when you can’t walk out of it or walk it out.

I hope walking through it can still contain a little whining.

Once again your Queen for A Day,

Songbird

Whining

Oh the Snow, It Snoweth Every Day

March 2, 2008 Martha Spong

Sigh.

It snowed again yesterday, and I faithfully shoveled to the best of my ability, the heavy snow that contained eventual rain.

There is a tree there on one side of my driveway near the street, limiting the amount of snow one can pile, and since my driveway is shared with my neighbor, D, I cannot throw to the other side. I would also remind you that I am 5 feet tall and the original mound of snow is at least 6 feet tall. So after the plow created a new mound last week, I began building on it, even though it was further out into the road.

Last night the city plow came by and knocked apart the mountain of snow at the foot of my driveway.

Where I ought to be backing out there is now a 3 foot snowball. Or rather, an iceball.

I am grateful for that "other half" of the driveway, as I will have to scoot around this and get to church this morning, then come back and deal with Frosty the SnowBall later.

Sermon over here, for those who like that sort of thing.

And more pictures below:

Weather, Whining

Frightful

February 13, 2008 Martha Spong

Need I say more?

Yes, I need.

We got 8 inches of snow last night, which would have been my post title if it might not attract unwelcome attention. I went out to shovel this morning, just after it turned to freezing rain. While I was shoveling, it somehow turned to rain, although the temperature is, as you can see, 30 degrees Farenheit.

I do not pretend to understand these weather mysteries.

Since Pure Luck is now far away in Chesapeake Bay Bridge State, I shoveled by myself. He had to drive through this mess yesterday, and his trip took a ridiculously long time. To top it off, the cell phone reception where he is staying? Basically non-existent. Two out of two calls: dropped.

He expected to be shooing deer away from his car this morning, so that gives a sense of how out of the way his accommodations are.

This started out to be about weather, but I have added "whining" as a subject, since I seem to be doing plenty of it.

I am working from home yet again, as school, along with everything else, is canceled and travel discouraged.

There is a bright note to be sounded, however, because my darling clergy neighbors have a freshly-repaired snowblower and will be helping me with the driveway. Since the snow now weighs about the equivalent of a Bernese Mountain Dog per shovelful, I love them. Very, very much.

To be clear, I already loved them.

But this is good news on a freezingly frightful day.

How’s the weather where you are? Is your Pixie under the umbrella?