…and the terrible horrible no good very bad week

A week ago Friday, I threw my back out. It started the weekend prior when I tripped, caught myself, and felt a little twinge in my lumbar region. A few days later, that spot started aching, and then, while getting ready to shower, I made a terrible mistake.

I took off my sock. 

Within seconds, I was flat on the floor. The pain became so bad, so quickly, that I saw stars. I’ll spare you the play-by-play of the next 48 hours but know that they were marked by a rotation of ice packs, heat packs, and ibuprofen. I am someone who lives in a body that is, quite literally, always injured, and my daily pain is nothing compared to that spasm. 

And then, as it abated, we got an email from our accountant. We are getting audited in Canada. I have a month to collect receipts. I panicked, terrified that I wouldn’t be able to track down one receipt and that the oversight would land me in a Canadian prison. Our accountant talked me down. It’s actually not a big deal at all. Apparently, the Canadian version of the IRS (the CRA) is well-staffed, and being asked for receipts is quite common. She said she gets three to four letters a day asking for receipts. 

So, a hassle but not an emergency.

And then, the day after the audit notice, I got some medical test results that really threw me. I will be vague here. A test revealed something that may indicate: 1. a testing mistake, 2. a small shift in how we manage my health, 3. a big deal. I will know more over the next few months. But, there were a couple of really hard days as I learned new terms, contacted the medical people I trust, and came up with a plan. (Plans feel very good to me.)

And THEN, more bad news. Do you remember the basement leak that was actually a roof leak that traveled through our kitchen and into our basement and pushed us out of our house for three months in 2021? 

The day after the medical news…

the. leak. came. back. 

We’re dealing with it. We don’t yet know if we’ll have to leave. We don’t yet know if the sheathing in our kitchen is covered in mold. We suspect it’s not as bad as two years ago. We have contractors and mold remediators, and unlike the first time this happened, I knew exactly who to call in what order and what questions to ask. We are very familiar with the anatomy of a roof and a wall. 

But, like, COME ON. All four of those things happened in the same seven days. 

We are, in general, fortunate, and we have a remarkably safe and stable life. All of the things that happened are just normal parts of being people who have bodies and a house and who pay taxes. I remark, often, that we shouldn’t be surprised when bad things happen. That’s the deal. It has, literally, been the case for every single human who has existed. It’s indignancy that will destroy us — the shock when something goes wrong as if we are entitled to ease. 

(Note: I am not talking about how some people are marginalized, and some people are not, and some people lack access to basic needs. I am talking about the flat tires and layoffs and bodies that fail.)

A brief aside. Another way of relating to struggle, and one that I find particularly aggravating, is the, “Of course, this happened to me. Bad things always happen to me.” No, they don’t. Bad things happen. Some people are lucky, maybe, and some are unlucky, maybe, but no one gets out unscathed.

It’s not that I have a good attitude when things are crappy. I have a few ways of dealing: I obsessively research, I make lists, and I get snippy. But I think I am pretty good at remembering that no one promised me ease. 

And, not to get too dramatic (I’m fine), but when I was worried about my health, one thought that kept coming to mind was this: I really love being alive. I want to keep being alive. 

Sometimes, in a perverse way, pain and fear and hassle are tactile reminders that we are alive. 

I recently heard Andrea Gibson read a poem, and it just floored me. I’ll paste it below, but I think you should listen to them read it (and buy their books). It’s this poem that helped me put words to this experience. How pain is human and, by extension, beautiful. How this week managed to remind me that I love this stupid leaky house. I love this stupid aching body. 

Tincture

Imagine, when a human dies, the soul misses the body, actually grieves the loss of its hands and all they could hold.  Misses the throat closing shy reading out loud on the first day of school.  Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe, the loose tooth, the funny bone.  The soul still asks, Why does the funny bone do that?  It’s just weird.  Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks watered by grief.  Misses how the body could sleep through a dream.  What else can sleep through a dream?  What else can laugh?  What else can wrinkle the smile’s autograph?  Imagine the soul misses each falling eyelash waiting to be a wish.  Misses the wrist screaming away the blade.  The soul misses the lisp, the stutter, the limp.  The soul misses the holy bruise blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side.  When a human dies, the soul searches the universe for something blushing, something shaking in the cold, something that scars, sweeps the universe for patience worn thin, the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box aching to be heard.  The soul misses the way a body would hold another body and not be two bodies but one pleading god doubled in grace.  The soul misses how the mind told the body, You have fallen from grace. And the body said, Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.  There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince, that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.  Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness, rage, the fist that was never taught to curl-curled, the teeth that were never taught to clench, clenched, the body that was never taught to make love-makes love like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.  The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin that no longer fits.  The soul misses every single day the body was sick, the now it forced, the here it built from the fever.  Fever is how the body prays, how it burns and begs for another average day.  The soul misses the legs creaking up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed up the vocal cords to curse the wheelchair.  The soul misses what the body could not let go-what else could hold on that tightly to everything?  What else could hear the chain of a swing set fall and fall to its knees?  What else could touch a screen door and taste lemonade?  What else could come back from a war and not come back?  But still try to live?  Still try to lullaby?  When a human dies, the soul moves through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal given nothing but time?  Do you understand?  Nothing in space can imagine it.  No comet, no nebula, no ray of light can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.  The fingertips pulling the first gray hair and throwing it away.  I can’t imagine it, the stars say.  Tell us again about goosebumps.  Tell us again about pain.