shadowcasting

it's been a week of living in the s.l.o.w. lane.
took a spill last sunday while exploring an urban trail near the house. as i was breathing in the joy of morning and ideas and lazy conversation with my sweetie, a rusty wire hanger with nothing better to do reached out and bit my foot.
maybe it was just trying to get my attention?
it so did.
i've been replaying the wild upendedness on my internal movie screen every day since. all of a sudden, the bluesky traded places with the gravelly trail and down went up and i went down.
arms that had been swinging happily forward pitched low to soften the crash. time didn't slow down, as it seems to do in movies. everything happened in the space of a breath.
thankfully nothing broke (hence the post-crash photo at right) though the wrist on the right got sprained and the rotator cuff on the left got torn and the knee got away with just a scratch.
so i've had a week of life -- more of the deep stuff; less of the fluff -- at a much lower mph.
(literally. since it took 5 days to be able to wash hair in the shower with both hands -- !!! -- the car hasn't gotten so much as a glance.)
it's been enough to give even a biology freak like me (who finally made it to philly's mutter museum this spring and if you haven't gone yet, do) a new respect for the symphony of unsung muscles and tendons that whir away behind the scenes.
so maybe that's the freebie. limited distractions equals deeper focus and even more gratitude for the whole schmear.
so i guess i owe that old rusty hanger a note of thanks:
i'm sore -- but not at you.

wondering....

if at the precise moment you think you have someone "all figured out"
it's really a sign
you've stopped seeing them...

in his own time

i'm so happy to welcome koji michael to the world!
my beautiful grandson arrived sunday afternoon, on his own schedule, weeks before doctors predicted.
his smart dad, also a doctor, had a hunch he'd catch an earlier flight and turned out to be exactly right.
seeing the beautiful pictures of his just-born face is a thrill -- hard to describe to anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of waiting for the next generation and maybe impossible to explain to anyone who has.
though he will certainly bloom into his own unique self, it's amazing to see, from the start, such dear traces of his many-branched family tree.
blessings and congratulations to his dad, mom and big brother jake (and all the rest of the branches).
you make such a beautiful family!