Malady lady

I am struggling to blog today as my body has a huge message to which it's forcing me to listen: acute carpal tunnel in both thumbs/wrists.

What's this all about?

I have learned a lot from my body, but it still often takes it screaming for me to always listen and act.

And I want to scream back: "Why can't you subtract all these little, annoying ailments instead of adding more?"

Actually, I want to scream that to God. It seems I just get settled into one thing or another, when something new strikes. If I bored you with a list, it would just suggest I am old and crotchety, things I desperately want to avoid. Therein may lay the message. Maybe avoidance and resistance are not healthy.

Maybe I've just taken too much on? Don't we all in today's dizzying culture?

My husband and family have always called me "malady lady," because I am always susceptible to weird stuff. Nothing ever serious, but chronic little things that begin to build. In elementary school, three doctors could not identify what rash I had or its source, so they ordered me to stay home simply because they had no diagnosis. I called my doc once in the midst of winter to say I had a severe case of poison ivy and I could almost hear snickering in the background. They believed me when I walked in with my face looking like a contour map, not counting normal peaks, valleys, protrusions and indentations. Must have brushed up against a bare branch as we tore down a friend's smokehouse.

So, this is nothing new and I can usually find the place in me that is grateful it's not terminal or critical.

But not always. What, exactly, is all of this trying to tell me?


• Do I get some constant message I misunderstand, avoid or dismiss?
• What would happen if I deciphered that message?
• Are the difficult spots a contrast to the hopeful and joyful ones just so we have a comparison, instead of living in perceived blandness where everything is on an even keel?
• Do we grow more in the difficult or joyful situations?


some days the sun shines,
I smile more and
everyone seems to
be wearing their
hearts outside

yet, others
my internal
landscape
is withered
and I don't
even notice
anyone else's
heart