Three weeks ago I injured (or re-injured) my elbow in a violent crab-grass + stepping stone incident. It was I versus the crab grass, whose abundant roots had lifted one of the stones in my foot path out of place. Auden cheered me on. It was a hard fought war, but in the end I won with a minimal casualty: my elbow tendonitis flared as a result of the pulling, tugging and straining. Auden watched with amusement through most of the battle, but he was a spectacular help with refilling the soil around and leveling the stone as I clutched my left arm to my chest.
This week it began to feel almost normal, so Auden and I decided to undertake another floral fencing match. We tackled transportation, trimming and repotting of a rubber tree that had been in my office at work, but was failing to thrive. Auden and I swung by work after summer school yesterday, trimmed the tree to about half its height, and stealthily snuck it through the halls and elevator of the office building. Less inconspicuous was our bike ride home with him straddling the back of my cargo bike while the rubber tree attacked him from the side saddle bag. After rolling and wrestling a large ceramic pot onto our deck, Auden helped me fill it with soil, rip the poor defenseless and shorn rubber tree from the pot that had been housing it for 7 years, plant the poor bugger, then he covered the soil with river rocks to keep the cats from making it their personal urinal. The hours of toil it took is hardly represented by the desperate looking plant on my back deck. Unfortunately, this tree got the better of me and now both of my elbows are quite outraged and ready to strike.
I am able to tackle these projects because this summer I took a personal leave from work. It is an experiment in stress level reduction to see if my health benefited. So far the experiment seems to be a miserable failure in many respects. June through mid July were highly stressful months filled with miles of travel across the country to and fro for a variety of reasons. This week, the first real week of rest, I find myself tackling what are seemingly minor projects: weeding and repotting only to find that my body is not cooperating.
Today I went to an aqua aerobics class because I wrecked my knee running the SF 5k with Eliot last weekend. Of the dozen or so participants, all but one other was at least a generation older than me, and man, they put me to absolute shame. Honestly, I don’t mind being out-fitnessed by women in their 70s. Good for them! I do mind that in spite of my active lifestyle my tendons either protest more than theirs or that my perception of pain is significantly different than theirs. If I’m like this before the age of 50, what will it feel like when I am 70? I probably won’t be able to prune a bonsai without Advil.
So no more plant battles in the coming weeks. I will try to focus on spending times with the kids, reading, and hopefully a bit more writing. Wish me luck.