In repair

I am a creature of habit. I build a routine and I stick with it. As a result, I have a hard time adjusting my sails when the wind changes direction.

Stacy Evensen has started a blog called Walk the Talk. Anyone who knows me would expect me to be all over it. But I’m not. My workouts are limited to crutching down the hall and around the corner to a bathroom with assistance bars in it.

Rather than butt-crack-of-dawn workouts, I’m luxuriously sleeping in until 5:45 a.m., slipping out of bed and getting ready for work. Easy. No sweat. Hobble out to the driveway and there’s my HMSA colleague and neighbor Trisha curbside, ready for our ride to work.

While healing is my priority, losing traction on fitness has put me in a funk. I don’t get that same euphoric rush from the Sudoku app on my iPhone. And although I’m spending another month on these crutches I cannot help but make plans for training: bicycling, rough-water swims. Will I ever run?

It’s not exactly living in the now. Too often we place our dreams and goals so far in the distance, that we forget that there is this serving of life right in front of us. This must be one of those times when I put on the glasses that help me focus on those things in life that are closer. I might feel as though I’m in a doldrums, in a dead calm, and that there is no point in hoisting my sail.

What does a sailor do in such times? They get out of the boat and scrub the barnacles beneath its surface. They mend the sails, they ascertain the quality of the ropes, they calibrate the GPS. The focus changes. They dust off the surfboard. Rather than ascertaining the entire sea, they instead pick a wave — pure and clear, glassy in the long rays of the morning sun. Minute, enjoyable, cleansing. And healing. It puts the bigger picture into perspective.