Early memory: I’m at the gas station with mom as she fills up our car. She grumbles about how this chore is such a waste of time. This hurry up, no time to waste way of life was a strong undercurrent in my childhood. I learned from a couple of masters.

In the northern hemisphere, autumn waits in the wings. I’m a big fan of markers that have been tracked by humans for millennia. They connect to something enduring about the human experience. Throughout time, fascination with the sun’s trajectory has connected us.

This morning I set out on my morning walk and, for the first time since my fall 7 weeks ago, I chose the path leading me right to The Spot. See ominous picture above. I willed myself to purposefully breathe. Slowly. So I could feel. The cramp in the pit of my belly. The catch in my throat. The ramp of my pulse. The way those very sensations translated in my heart. Intense dread. Panic tinged with a whiff of shame.

First, perhaps, an update. Three weeks since the sidewalk sprawl and healing is some kinda miracle in motion. There’s still sharp pain moving certain ways, end of day ache. Using a splint on/off because I can feel how immobility makes it worse. Gentle movement in all available pain free range as my skilled right hand treats the fascial binding ‘tween the two long forearm bones. Learning so much first hand! Elbow to fingertips is a non-weight bearing version of knee to toes. In this past week healing has included creative single-handed camping AND total immersion in breath. Breath…that’s what I really want to write about today.

The phrase “loose, long and strong” emerged toward the end of my clinic days, a catchy descriptor for teaching patients how to follow through with healing movement at home. Twenty-five years down the road it still fits for what I’m up to. In fact, the perfection of it totally guides rehab of my left arm. Six weeks now and well on its way.

One moment: upright human being out for early morning walk. Next moment: pathetic creature sprawled on sidewalk. Just like that. One more lesson (as if needed) on how change happens lickety-split. I lay there, a ball of woe, gathering my wits along with the self-esteem splattered on the concrete.

She described every detail of her right foot pain. The way in 2020 it commenced in conjunction with the lockdown. Which she dealt with by taking extraordinarily long neighborhood strolls. Her right heel, with no specific injury, began to be painful seemingly out of nowhere. Soon it was unbearable even to walk around the house. She did a course of physical therapy and then saw a podiatrist. To no avail.

I considered several juicy options to mark the momentous wheel turn at birthday fifty. Ultimately I chose what scared me most. And began to own up to a lifetime of consistently fear-driven selection. Adrenaline junkie? Thrill seeker? Crazy woman? Well…maybe. In light of my precarious childhood, you’d guess I’d be a big fan of safety. But my soul, in its maturity, knows how incredibly instructive living on the brink is.

Each month Spotlight, a monthly publication of 5Rhythms Global, introduces teachers to dancers around the world. While in West Virginia I connected with Jenelle, a southern California teacher who creates this feature. She asked if I might contribute an essay for the July issue on the theme of gratitude. Well, you know me…I love to write…so I said yes, of course.

“I feel you feeling me.”

Thomas Hubl

This simple quote nails it. When I feel you the same instant I sense being felt by you…well, that is intimacy. Which is a crucial building block for experiencing safe relationships.

Touching home base just this one day before I depart once again. I feel drawn to the page, chock full of expression that begs emptying. Bathing at Harbin Hot Springs echoes, first time teaching there since the 2015 fire. Moving in me. The pools survived the fire and they offer me so much solace.

On Saturday night I fell into the photograph rabbit hole, precious images archiving what it looked like to be a young family. This greased the wheels for many tears on a Mother’s Day that skirted outside the bounds of Hallmark.

Holding space for 5Rhythms practice, a unique calling. In the days preceding a session, I root through the mud of my life, digging for what’s most alive and juicy. Then I massage this little tender fragment into the shape of embodied inquiry. All this, before I find the right music and step through the door, in all vulnerability, to offer a group investigation. It has been the perfect prescription for my own growth.

I’m sitting in a Petaluma coffee shop, headed home from three days camping solo on the northern California wild coastline. Celebrating that I can still pull off something like this as I turn 73 next week. Bowing in reverence to the powers that be that have granted me this lengthy lifetime.

For the umpteenth time I listened to a physical therapy tale of woe. Just last week I heard the story again. With variations on body part, it pretty much goes something like this:

Sea change: a profound or notable transformation. Lately I’ve been curiously at watch as our communities of practice move through a sea change. Something is different in this post-Covid spell.

I up and quit my fresh from interning professional job after just 2 ½ years. It was an absorbing chapter, sprawled on a floor mat, delivering therapy for youngsters shaped by cerebral palsy. Wet behind the ears and guiding families in crisis. Improvising solutions for the severely disabled in an under-staffed residential home. Coordinating care with special ed teachers and advocating for kids in medical clinics.

Twenty years ago, in a corner clinic office, I languished yearning to be free. Literally boxed in, held by a rectangle so rigid it was hard to move and fully breathe. So much responsibility, liability, adulting. Up on my wall, next to an endless have-to calendar, hung a ragged piece of poster paper, hastily sketched with a giant triangle. At each point on the triangle, a circle: dance, yoga, physical therapy. They were so connected inside of me. I fantasized manifesting them as a woven entity outside of me.

Meditation: maybe this is on your shoulda coulda woulda list, lumped in there with proper nutrition and daily exercise. It was on my list also for a long time. But some time in the late 80’s, minding my own business, doing my daily exercise walk thing on M Street, Jack Kornfield entered my life. A tape cassette series— Meditation for Beginners—summoned me from it’s perch atop a neighbor’s trash pile.

Evaluate and treat: 3 X a week for 6 weeks

So would read any number of prescriptions at the physical therapy clinic I owned. The patient came in for assessment and then returned on the regular for hands on treatment and exercise progression. Not unusual for this prescription to be renewed at least once. Discharge was the ultimate goal, but there was no hurry.