Recovery Phase 3

Phase 3… a totally made up number, but last I posted I called it Recovery Phase 1 and I definitely feel like I am beyond phase 2. So here we are, phase 3. I walk. Sometimes without a hitch in my gait, sometimes not. I go on small hikes on gentle terrain. I ride my bike for 1-2 hours on dirt roads, not trails. I have permission to jog, but who wants to jog? And honestly, my knee doesn’t feel ready. Therapy continues. At PT, at home, at the gym where I can start to push some weights now. Carefully. Everything is done carefully.

How badly we want progress to be linear, but how rarely it cooperates. Whether we are talking about recovery from surgery or the country. What does progress look like in your life? Do you care about such an undefinable concept? If so, what is that like to go through each day content? Without striving? It’s a world I can not even imagine. I strive constantly. Spanish. Clarinet. Sport. House. Home. Knee. I strain at the bit to learn more, become “better”, improve myself and my surroundings.

Meanwhile I am mostly happy, as difficult as that may be to reconcile.

Here’s my life the last few months.

It’s cold. Like single digits. Cold. But the sun makes everything ok. I ride my bike in the afternoon. We had early snow, but since then it’s been dry, dry, dry.

We’ve had visitors, a quick stop from a dear friend that now lives in the Reno area. A longer visit, our first official house guests, from Robbie and Jasper. They left us this gift of a beautiful painting on our fence. It brings me so much joy on the cold monochrome mornings, the air so still and dry it could crack, to look out my window at this patch of color.

Not the only gift of color and constant reminders of dear friends. My friend Mark gifted us this beautiful mobile as a housewarming present. The color. The joy. If you like his art, go see more here. His spirit is as beautiful as his art.

I didn’t know color was going to be the theme of this post, but here it is. The mobile (upper left of the photo above) consists of colors that evoke aspen leaves in all their seasons. When we moved into the house, every wall was white. In the last month we have painted an accent wall in over half the rooms, which brings us so much joy!

In addition to visitors we did a road trip to stay with friends in Colorado. There was laughter, sharing, and great food. And a much needed change of scenery at a time I was still feeling rather trapped by my knee.

When Robbie was here we made tamales for the first time. We made poblano, jalapeno and queso ones, chicken tamales, and a sweet pineapple. They were all delicious!!

On a surprisingly warm day just after the New Year, Jesse and I did a road trip to Mesa Verde National Park (less than 2 hours away). We had the place almost to ourselves! There were views for miles and it’s always an honor to observe and reflect upon the traditional homes of the Ancestral Pueblo People. What a beautiful place to call home.

This is the view from a bike ride just out our back door. We love living “snow adjacent” and will love it even more when I am able to cross country ski and snow shoe next year. Meanwhile, the mountain views and riding our bikes on dry terrain in January sure is nice.

With love…