Thanks to all of you who sent sympathies for my bum shoulder. It has made a remarkable recovery this week since I last wrote. It’s gotten better almost as quickly as it went sour, which has been a very strange experience. I had a few days where I was in a lot of pain, but now it’s still a little untrustworthy, but mostly better. Better enough that I was out raking this weekend because it’s November in New Hampshire and that is what one does. I was very conscious of what I was doing, and deliberately going slower than I normally would because the last thing I wanted was to spend another couple of nights sleeping in my recliner.
One of my personal failings, a character flaw, is that I do not pace myself well. I’m all in, or I’m not at all. I work at tasks like raking until I’m breathing hard and sweating, scraping the grass from the earth along with the leaves, rather than just taking it easy and letting the rake do most of the work. I don’t chunk out work well. It’s part of why I set up disciplines for myself, like doing a project 365 – picture a day. It runs intensely counter to how I normally work. But it’s good for me, forcing me to think about the long road and leaning into the work.
This weekend as I was raking I was hyper aware of this failing because I found myself falling into my usual ways, realizing I was pushing my shoulder too hard, and having to dial it back. I didn’t get as much done as I normally would have, but I was much more relaxed. It was nice being out in the 40-degree weather, with a November-white sky, sweeping the leaves up onto a tarp, then dragging the tarp into the woods so the leaves could return from whence they came. I didn’t get as much done as I would have, but I didn’t re-injure myself, and honestly, I didn’t leave that much on the ground. I’ll be back out next weekend because the oaks don’t let go of all their leaves until closer to Christmas, so it didn’t really matter anyway. Pacing. It doesn’t all have to be done at once.
I’m jealous of people who are good at pacing themselves. It’s a gift that plays well alongside deferred gratification. I’d like to think I’m a little better at it as I get older. Some of the improvement is driven by getting older and having to slow down, like this weekend. I’m not as fast as I once was, even if I wasn’t injured. I’ve read that the fast-twitch muscles go first. You lose speed, then strength. I was a little grateful this weekend for having to slow down. I think I enjoyed the time with the leaves more than I would have otherwise. Now if I could just do that in other parts of my life without the threat of bodily (re)injury.
**
This newsletter is coming out a day because I am bad at pacing myself and planning ahead. We celebrated TLW’s birthday this weekend and I just ran out of time.