When I started this blog all by my lonesome – my hubby and I used to write a blog together – I really didn’t know what I would say. I only knew that I was very, very sad not to have a place to say things anymore. More of which popped into my head daily.

However, I was nervous about having and managing a place of my own because I always shared one with him and he is an excellent and brave writer. I really couldn’t stop myself though. And acting on a strange new impulse I’ve had since Mom died, I really did something about it. All by myself. I’m pretty proud of that, to be honest.

Nevertheless, this little place is quite different from the last and full of my many woes. You are my listening friend. I need a place to tuck away all the overflowing tidbits I gather and hold. I need a place to work through my grief as it comes and goes. I need a place to be me and become me.

And so, here I am. And here you are. I don’t mean to be melancholy. Truly. That is all I started off to say. It’s only that I feel that I have a right to be. I am still grieving. Well not at the moment. I’m hiding from my grief, unbeknownst to myself. I’m hiding in work and cooking and Warcraft, desperately seeking an salve that can restore the shattered pieces. I’m not a shell of myself, but I know that I am not completely myself either. It’s that I don’t know which pieces are missing. Truly, there are some of them I’ve never met.

It’s been really hard to deal with life of late and even harder to talk about it. You know, you go over for dinner and the six hour explanation of how my family betrayed me and blamed me for my mother’s death just doesn’t fit comfortably between the roast and potatoes. Doesn’t even go well with coffee. And everything goes well with cream and sugar. That compounded by the fact that I feel so shy sharing. I’m a much more comfortable listener.

Some part of me would like to get more of the story out to more people. I think they are being nice and not asking, pushing when I may not be ready. But, despite evidence on this blog, I’m not one to talk about myself and bring my own woes up in conversation. Besides, sharing all of it really makes me feel terribly vulnerable. Having been so hurt, some part of me feels like I did something to deserve it. And so telling other people my problems only gives them ammunition to treat me the same. See how bad the trust thing has gotten with me?

Who will emerge from all this? I don’t know, but I’m thankful for this little place where I can say things whenever courage does come to me. It’s why I made it the Confidential.

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New books are friends, not yet found. I have to hold them close, open them up and not be afraid to enter their innermost borders. While they almost always are a treat for the mind, it is more rare when your hands love them just as much. Today’s publishers don’t put as much money into making a book comfortable to hold, and frankly we probably don’t want them to do so because of the expense.

And yet the book I’m delving into now has all the aesthetic qualities I could ever wish for in a tome. Just the right weight, just the right size. On the heavier side but probably only 6 inches tall, hard-bound with thick paper pages, a light colored cover and a particular shade of red for its endleaf. The constitution as a whole is perfectly suited to its miraculous text. It feels in my hands as the one and only book that should ever matter in my life, the one I will cling to and hide amongst my skirts to sneakily read bits between my chores. Like the semi-Cinderella in Ever After and her beloved Utopia by Thomas More or Marianne Dashwood’s pocket sonnets of Shakespeare.

I’m reading a gift at present. It was literally a gift from my husband and, I believe, a gift of faith from my father in heaven: Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI.

Words are so amazing. I should stop being surprised, but my eyes are always looking at a new world. Something is always in bloom, growing, becoming new. And this book really is the epitomy of the itty bitty miraculous book.

I take it in small sections, as no spiritual scholar am I. It is immensely readable to any lay person, I only digest such reading very slowly. But when I pick it up, anytime I pick it up, my eyes begin on a fresh paragraph and Scripture as I know it is turned upside down. This morning’s passage was no different and is what prompted me to share with you.

I’m half hesitant because maybe I’m mostly a fool and should have seen this other side of the Scripture before. Don’t be afraid to tell me, if you have thought or understand this point before. Actually, in the bit I’m about to quote the Holy Father does say that I should have known. haha Yet, my point today remains that I love learning about Jesus and this book succeeds for me, in every form. (The bolded text is my own emphasis to highlight what I found so revealing.)

“The Beautitudes are the transposition of Cross and Resurrection into discipleship. But they apply to the disciple because they were first paradigmatically lived by Christ himself.

This becomes even more evident if we turn now to consider Matthew’ verrsion of the Beatitudes (cf. Mt 5:3-12). Anyone who reads Matthew’s text attentively will realize that the Beatitudes present a sort of veiled biography of Jesus, a kind of portrait of his figure.“

I’d write more or edit more or both, but I want to get back to reading. Go read your Beautitudes too. lol

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Ever done yoga? I’m no expert but I used to enjoy some of the exercises via Yourself! Fitness on the Xbox. Sitting on my bum for extended periods of time at present has really gotten me thinking of all the physical things I miss and wish I had done more of, all while I diligently take my calcium supplement. lol

Following the personal trainer in the game, you move through a series of poses, each with its own name. The ones with strong names – like the Warrior and the Tree – have stuck with me as favorites. Tree pose is particularly challenging. It has you balance on one leg with the opposite foot resting on the inner thigh, your hands folded as in prayer in front of your chest then raised above the head and pointed towards the ceiling. I really haven’t done it in a long time, but remember it as very calming and centering.

At a recent orientation for one of my jobs, there was one guy to all us girls. And when our instructor was detailing one of our perks to be classes such as yoga going on in a fitness centre in the building, our lone male snuffed that one quickly under the table while several of us girls immediately started chatting up a storm about our experiences thus far with the exercise.

God only knows why, but I got so excited – and the guy was so silly as to not have ever seen any yoga – that I got up from the table and did the crazy Tree pose right there for everyone. Needless to say, it became a joke throughout our two days of the absolute boredom of orientation and paperwork .

I recall all this to you now from my recliner because I feel like I am now ironically in permanent tree pose. When I get up and walk around – baby steps though because my foot usually throbs – I am constantly having to balance on one foot. And when I’m not walking around, my primary source of entertainment is World of Warcraft where I play – you guessed it – a tree!

I’ve told you about my character Kalanna before, but what I didn’t get into is that her role in game is primarily that of a healer. When we go out to kill really bad nasty monsters – many of which we downed on the weekend! Woohoo! – she shape shifts into a tree which is the druid’s form to heal.

How does everything in my life come to be so connected? I wonder if it’s just my eyes. Perhaps not, even Restoration magazine recently had an article about what I have to look forward to in physiotherapy from someone with a very similar experience.

Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.” Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. ~ Acts 3:6-7

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can I rename it torture for the newly traumatized?

The whole family likes to sit and enjoy a weekend dinner in front of this show for laughs but having just broken both bones in my leg, this show is torture. Like reliving the fatal moment over and over. Thank goodness for egg rolls to keep my mind off the pain – real and imagined. hehe

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At the most mundane moments in life, I seem to be full of words. And at the most traumatic, totally empty of them.

I don’t feel like I have that much to say, despite two bones broken, but must thank you all for your love, prayers, notes. I got notes both mornings from hospital volunteers and it was beyond comforting to know that I was not alone.

I don’t know how it happened. One moment I was worried about being late to my first day on a new job and grumbling at the parking meter for eating my toonie. The next moment I was on the pavement with my foot pointing outward at a 90 degree angle to its normal position.

For those who can bear the details, it felt like my whole leg was simply turned to the right and all I needed to do was turn it to face the proper way. Lying on the stretcher, I had to keep telling myself not to lift it or reach down, that it was only my foot turned and that I shouldn’t do anything about it myself. Oddest of all, my skin wasn’t broken nor terribly red. Swollen and incredibly sensitive though. The first nurse to touch it only lightly brushed the skin to feel for a pedal pulse and brought me to tears.

I count myself incredibly lucky. When I called out for help, someone was right there and drove me to the hospital. Half an hour after getting there, one of my best friends arrived for her shift in the ER.

No one knows how I possibly did so much damage by twisting my foot on some ice. Frankly I’m terrified at what the deeper meaning might be about my bones. The doc says that I can get a bone densitometry test done later. For now the small repercussions are sucky enough – I’ve broken my pedal foot and was supposed to be sewing Gaby’s First Communion dress, two new jobs are now on hold and all the grand digging in the dirt plans for spring will be very delayed.

I’ve tried to go over the moment to remember what it is that went wrong, but that mostly becomes a nightmare and my thoughts dwell more on the beautiful moments, precious and healthy, before the disaster. How quickly life changes – yet again.

I love you all.

So maybe I did have something to say. I’ll blame the narcotic.

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