7/22/10
My heart is overflowing with gratitude and awe of the abundance of love and generosity that my friends have shown me these last three weeks since the sailing accident. They set up a site on Lotsa Helping Hands and I have so much help now. My door stays open and several people a day stop by with food and love. I believe in the healing power of love and prayer and it is no doubt thanks to such support that I am so much better. I am healing way ahead of what was predicted. My speaking ability is back, as is my ability to focus my eyes and read for short times. I am up now after 3 very quiet weeks lying in a dark room in more stillness than I have ever known. I am still very dizzy and my legs feel like jello. Walking is still very awkward, slow, and limited, but I am happy to say everything is getting better every day. Right now I am grateful for spell check which is making me look downright normal.
I now know I must have gotten knocked upside the head pretty good. Good enough to knock out my tooth and to knock out my memory of getting hit. I suspect the boom hit me as I somersaulted into and out of a boat doing a complete 360, from turtled to turtled, in seconds. I guess it’s generally not a good idea to alligator wrestle chunks of fiberglass and metal many times your size. The Coast Guard rescued so many people that night they dropped them on the jetties.
I’m the only one who got hurt. What is the lesson here? Was this because I was the only one with such an emotional agenda about learning to sail? I was married to a sailor for 15 years who refused to teach me anything about sailing. He said it was too complicated and it used to make me feel powerless and mad. I signed up to learn to sail this summer so I could undo that limiting belief and “take the tiller of my own life”. It was more than symbolic that I wanted to learn to skipper. And my first lesson ended up almost killing me??? Perhaps this storm created above my head was a surreal gift just for me, or perhaps it was nothing personal. Remember how you make God laugh? Tell him your plans! “Take the tiller, my ass,” laughs the Universe.
My heart is overflowing with gratitude and awe of the abundance of love and generosity that my friends have shown me these last three weeks since the sailing accident. They set up a site on Lotsa Helping Hands and I have so much help now. My door stays open and several people a day stop by with food and love. I believe in the healing power of love and prayer and it is no doubt thanks to such support that I am so much better. I am healing way ahead of what was predicted. My speaking ability is back, as is my ability to focus my eyes and read for short times. I am up now after 3 very quiet weeks lying in a dark room in more stillness than I have ever known. I am still very dizzy and my legs feel like jello. Walking is still very awkward, slow, and limited, but I am happy to say everything is getting better every day. Right now I am grateful for spell check which is making me look downright normal.
I now know I must have gotten knocked upside the head pretty good. Good enough to knock out my tooth and to knock out my memory of getting hit. I suspect the boom hit me as I somersaulted into and out of a boat doing a complete 360, from turtled to turtled, in seconds. I guess it’s generally not a good idea to alligator wrestle chunks of fiberglass and metal many times your size. The Coast Guard rescued so many people that night they dropped them on the jetties.
I’m the only one who got hurt. What is the lesson here? Was this because I was the only one with such an emotional agenda about learning to sail? I was married to a sailor for 15 years who refused to teach me anything about sailing. He said it was too complicated and it used to make me feel powerless and mad. I signed up to learn to sail this summer so I could undo that limiting belief and “take the tiller of my own life”. It was more than symbolic that I wanted to learn to skipper. And my first lesson ended up almost killing me??? Perhaps this storm created above my head was a surreal gift just for me, or perhaps it was nothing personal. Remember how you make God laugh? Tell him your plans! “Take the tiller, my ass,” laughs the Universe.
I’ve learned to embrace the experience. Just to say yes to all of lives out of control crazy moments. The irony is that I have never felt more surrendered to having no control of anything. Natural childbirth was a similarly deep lesson in humility before God and in surrendering all control. There is profound peace in the surrender. I feel lucky to be alive.
There has been a deep beauty in completely unplugging from the world. There has been a stillness that I have never known. I was told to not engage my mind and to keep conversations to a first grade level. The less I used my mind, the faster I got better. At first I thought no problem. I’ve been meditating for 30 years this should be easy. What a surprise to discover that meditation was too stressful! My mantra would hurt my head. All that concentration would make my brain shut down and freeze the same way everything else did. Even meditation is doing!! Who knew!!! This meant NO doing, no thinking, just being. Just sit an watch the grass grow. and giggle. No where to go. No where to get to. Just the eternal NOW. A forced spiritual RETREAT. Think about that word. There is a TREAT in RETREAT. Retreating deeply within. Into the dark and into the light that lie at the center of our being. You know it’s really ok in there. It’s a good place to make friends with.
I find I am so much closer to the animal kingdom than ever. Feeling on par with the four leggeds. No thinking, no agenda, no to do list to get to, just being. It’s sweet and I have this magnetic pull towards critters of all kinds that I have never had before in my busy world. Somehow they seem to be pulled towards me too. I now have a fox with two kits who hang out on my deck at night. I woodchuck living under my porch, and the cutest little handful of a baby bunny living twelve feet from my front door. We’ve named her Lily and she comes out and joins us for dinner every night. We eat dinner, she eats the grass next to us.
I keep looking at how well my stitches and bruises have healed, proof of the amazing healing power of the human body. It affirms for me that with all the visualizing I’ve done this last few weeks, I have grown miles of new neural connections, and my new brain will be even better than before. I’ve been picturing beautiful rainbow colored, light filled connections in my brain firing constantly as they break into musical notes, creating a gorgeous symphony of music. No doubt we should all be doing this!
I’ve chosen to believe my brain is being rewired for the new times we live in. Old synapses need to go. The new ones are full of light. No doubt a brand new me will emerge. Right now that me feels the oneness of all. I feel layers of ego and identity fall away and a true sense that we are all one. Indeed if love heals, I now carry each of you within me forever more.
Before the accident, I had been reading Bill McKibben’s “Deep Economy” about building a new economy based on the wealth of community. He quotes a study from Europe that says their citizen’s number one value is taking care of each other; money is at the bottom of the list. Vermont can be proud to say the same thing. That is true wealth and security. I have now been humbled and blessed to know this wealth first hand. What a gift it is to know that we are so loved and that people show up in amazing and generous ways in times of crisis.
I am blessed to be surrounded by so many wonderful people. This gift goes far beyond the actual acts friends are providing. This has stretched my capacity to receive and know my own worthiness. This has stretched my vision for the Wealth of Community. I have been shown a new model of generosity and connectedness. I am blessed beyond beleif. Investing in relationships is the best investment ever.
Hello Nathalie, I am so impressed by what you have been able to accomplish, in writing this continuous blog; and so soon after your Traumatic Brain Injury! It's been four and a half years post T.B.I. for me, (due to a very bad car accident), but what you describe sounds so familiar that it actually makes me smile, to hear many of 'my own experiences', from someone else's mind! The good news is that things will eventually get better; or you will learn to cope so well, that the deficiencies or challenges would no longer be a huge issue. (Wouldn't that be nice? Well, it's been true for many of us 'survivors' and I hope it becomes true for you too.) Life will be more meaningful and enjoyable again, though probably altered/ different. Seems like there's very little one can do to rush things however, and some level of acceptance of new realities, becomes a great gift and ally. I am much better these days, though I am still waiting for my own "...lived happily ever after..." but it doesn't seem so impossible now. Take care of yourself, and remember to 'hoard' the little glimpses of a silver lining, on those days when your brain is in the mood to notice and appreciate them. They will serve you well on the much greyer days, as you continue to heal and recover! God's blessings! - J.M. in Canada. (J.E. in VT is a mutual friend)
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