My Team

Couldn't recover myself all alone; it was too much to ask. So now I have a support team. They are:

Taylor, a young Doctor of Physical Therapy. She asks and answers questions, has me practice standing and sitting and flexing and arranging pillows for best sleeping alignment, gives me printed and illustrated instructions for exercises. Probably my problem was a muscle spasm; I am glad to hear this because it means maybe my disk is not squashed. Taylor says that someday I will be able to return to Tae Kwon Do.

Debby, a psychologist. Thanks to talking with her, I began having an appetite again, just last week. I'm starting slowly with food other people cooked, or readymade food such as eggs already boiled and packaged, or Rice Chex or fruit, and bit by bit am cooking, like, kale chips or potato-leek soup in the microwave. For a while there all I could eat was hot wings from the deli at Walmart. Thank you to Terri for the referral to this personable lady who does not ROTFL when I say that.

Emily, a physician's assistant. She prescribed medicine for what I think is a stomach ulcer I've had on and off since about 2004. I also received from her my flu shot and shingles shot. P.S.: Blood pressure 112 over 76.

Normally I would not request the services of any of the above fearing the fees for medical treatment, but I reasoned that it's worth it to try to rebuild myself.

Anthony: Longtime friend 1000 miles away guides me in things academic, even contributed to a fund for a research trip, and I can tell him almost anything.

Patrick: Mows lawns, builds tables and firebowls like it's easy, cleans and clears garages and other spaces, removes stuck-on snakes, fearlessly climbs a ladder to the roof and clears off a ton of storm debris, and does it without complaint and brings beautiful pastel-colored organic eggs from his hens when they lay too many.

Hope, Daria, Derek, Lucy, Holly, Cecelia, Drew and others in Spiritual Group: We meet every two weeks, perfect timing in a perfect space and have perfect discussions about our topic or video or reading. Thanks to this group's wisdom I can now instantly enter meditation mode: something I'd been failing at for years.

Becky, Maria, Gaye, Andie, Mary Ruth, Gail, Karen, Grace, Wanita, Marlene, Nan and more in Women's Poetry Workshop: If it weren't for them I'd probably have given up on poetry. As it is, I'm receiving a poetry prize this week, and so is Maria and a male poet friend, Matt.

Terri: Winner of the Best Neighbor of the Century Award, so cheerful having returned from an amazing three-week road trip to the west, a lifelong dream, including Mt. Rushmore, Yosemite, Crater Lake, sequoias and giant redwoods, San Francisco, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Las Vegas and much more: brought me southwestern hot peppers and a sizeable rock from Sedona as souvenirs.

Wendy the housekeeper, Linda the accountant, Dave the Ex Who Vows He Has Changed and I Say I'll Believe It When You Bring Me a Five-Carat Diamond, and you and you and you who are all so important to me. Did I say I felt alone in life? That now that Mom was gone and I've finished  teaching, nobody on earth would give a sharp stick in the eye whether I lived or died?