I spent this saturday helping to man a first aid tent for the local MS Walk. I am a certified wilderness first responder, so the theory is that since I (theoretically) know how to deal with an open femur fracture more than an hour away from definitive medical care, that I should be able to put a band-aid on a knee.
Both of the above assumptions are wrong. On the one hand, although I was taught in a twelve-day course how to apply traction and a splint to a femur fracture, I'm not at all certain how I would handle it for real. And it was a year and a half ago that I took the course, so things are a bit fuzzy now.
On the other hand, it's really wrong to assume that just simple scrapes will happen with a community benefit walk. The people who are doing this stuff are not in good shape, almost by definition. And some of their relatives are REALLY not in good shape. The whole day I had visions of needing to do CPR, and I hoarded free oranges and water bottles for possible diabetics since our supplied med kit had no glucose. One old dude sat down in our patient chair and said "whew! I made it a mile this year. Double what I did last year, when I lost my sight since I'd forgotten my insulin!"
Whew, that was saturday. And then sunday: all day in the garden. I put up a third raised garden bed, and cleaned a bunch of rocks out of the yard. Interspersed with a lot of just sitting and listening to the creek, the wind in the trees, and birds calling back and forth. Finn was out with me most of the day, Zooey occasionally. Finn caught a mole and a mouse. Zooey sniffed them, but mostly she stayed close to me, wary of the wider world. Sometimes I just had to stop, and sit, and be. Occasionally Laura would open the door, come out, and come stand next to me. She has her own battles, but the garden is good for both of us. We stand, she listens, I listen. After ten minutes, she nuzzles me and goes back inside to finish what she was doing.
It's weird. Where I am now, I would not have thought I would ever be, just 3-ish years ago. Which is an example of hope, I guess. Plenty of things go wrong, but time passes, and we go on.
A new page is just a day away. Well, if we let it be, it seems.
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Nice. Just nice.
ReplyDeleteGarden, community and small pet carnivores who happen to be super-superior hunters.
Nice.
mmm, it's amazing to see where time has dropped us off at down the road. Were you prepared for anything along way that provided band-aids or oranges? You've figured out what makes sense to you. It's a whole new field to navigate, but at least you've got someone to nuzzle along the way and a kitteh to protect you from ferocious moles. :)
ReplyDeleteThis was such a nice post - there is something about nature that hits me and brings me home as nothing else can.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice way to start my Monday (though today is Tuesday... I read it yesterday)
Wombat, Exception, thanks :) Yes, I agree, reconnecting to community and nature is somehow fundamental and necessary. As I sat and listened to the birds, watching the wind sway the trees while Finn played in the grass next to me, all seemed well with the world.
ReplyDeletebella, it is always so nice to see you! I wasn't prepared for anything at all during the MS Walk -- the medkit that they gave us was just hilarious. It was only after the diabetic man sat down and told his story that I freaked out a little bit and started harvesting oranges from the food tent! One of my peers joked about sending someone to Haagens (local grocery store) to buy another box of band-aids, just in case the three band-aids that we had would fail to suffice...
And yeah, we're all navigating new fields, aren't we? I, you, Wombat, and Exception -- how very much our lives have changed in the last three years, judging by your blog posts and mine. Usually I get contemplative like this around July. I suppose that it has come early, this year.