Cold waves, enamel bowls, wildflowers and ice in June. 

h. 

I have a week's worth of nice things to say, but I am coming here with something else.

I injured my back this weekend. I've been having trouble with my back for a few months - it began around the middle of the past semester and seemed to be the result of spending all my time sitting at a desk. When I could no longer deny that the pain wouldn't just magically go away (which is always my first hope), I developed a routine of stretching and going to the gym, both of which helped, and when I got home I immediately began physiotherapy. Back pain is scary shit. A series of x-rays revealed that the spaces between the discs in my lower back are narrowing - for now, the best thing to do is to exercise, and continue to go to physio, and basically work to build muscle in the right places to support the weakening part of my spine. 

I've been pretty much okay since coming home. Having more to do in a day than sit at a desk helps a lot. Physio has helped enormously. I'd started to forget that my back was an issue - and it was an issue, this past semester, in a big and often scary way. And then, this weekend, I lifted something I shouldn't have lifted and since then I have been a mess of curse words and tears and ice packs. 

I feel, mostly, stupid. Stupid for lifting the heavy thing, and stupid for being in pain, and I know that last part makes no sense. Is that a weird reaction to pain? I'm furious, not because I feel like this is unfair, and only partly because I could have prevented it - really, I just sort of hate myself for feeling this at all, and feeling it such that I have to cancel plans, that all I can do or think about is how to make this manageable until it goes away. I'm mad that I've been legitimately taken down. 

I hate that I can't handle it. But I also know it's an impossible thing to handle. I was discussing this with a friend today, who pointed out that back pain will bring down even the toughest of fully grown men. Everyone I've had to explain myself to has given me huge amounts of sympathy - either because they've experienced something similar, or because they know someone who has. And, truly, it's awful. I can't think of a way to describe it except possibly nauseating. It is a pain that makes me feel like I could throw up. 

But the hardest part is not the experience itself, though that part is undeniably bad. The hardest part is admitting to it, is it being the kind of situation where I have no choice. I realize that probably sounds weird. My general approach to Things that are Bad is to push through them, and to do so without letting anyone know that Things are Bad, if I can. But I can't hide this - even if I didn't ever talk about it, it is written all over me physically. I can't do the things I normally do. I can't really do anything. And to have had to say, lately, that I can't do things, and to have had to rely on the kindness and understanding of other people, to have had to accept it without protest and because I know beyond any doubt that I can't do a damn thing without it? It's been humbling. At times, uncomfortably so. 

The back pain will go away. I've been taking care of myself, in the physio/doctor/exercise/rest department, and it is slowly getting better... but I'm full of all sorts of weird feelings about it that I didn't know I had. To have found myself, for a while, without my usual amount of independence, has been a very revealing sort of thing. 
 

h. 

The taken-with-an-actual-camera edition. 

h. 

This is where I spent the past week.

You will understand, I think, when I say I am sad to be back. 

I took so many actual photos, but for some reason I can't make my camera communicate with my wheezy old computer, so a cell phone photo will have to do for now. I have to give technology a gold star for this one, though - it's a pretty great picture. 

I don't have an ounce of eloquence or even coherence in me lately. I came here wanting to write, but I think I'll just leave this and go. 

h. 

I woke up at 4 a.m. because my bedroom was lit up like a disco. The storm outside was spectacular. The rain hit the windows like it was trying to get in, like something was chasing it. I sat on the couch in the living room and watched it until my eyes began to close. 

It was all very dramatic.

It's been raining all day, and I have the day off, and I have barely left my room. I've been sitting at my desk trying to make something beautiful. It helps, in a strange way, to make stuff - to write, or to take photos, or to draw something - it doesn't give me answers, but it makes it easier not to have any. 

All my closest friends are far away, so we have been sending each other whatever we can, just to bridge the distance. I have been making little videos, which I mostly film with my cell phone, although I've recently learned that there's a way to make my digital camera (which doesn't take video) able to film things, and I feel like that would be worth trying. Either way, it's been nice to have a reason to make nice things and nice to have a reason to share them. I might start posting some of them here.

Generally, I'm afraid to share things unless I feel like they are somehow fully formed and amazing, which nothing I do ever really is. I've been trying to do it anyway - keeping a "public" blog was a good exercise in that - but I could try harder. 

I've been writing often. It's all kind of sloppy, but there's a lot of it, and for now that seems good enough. And I've been reading. And I've been driving a lot and listening to the radio and slowing down the truck when I see deer in the ditch waiting to cross the road. Next week I am visiting the little mountain town where I worked last summer - I will hike and walk and eat ice cream and sleep on a bunk bed and I can't wait.

I feel like coming home has been like retreating entirely into my very private, internal world. I've developed a routine of reading and writing and driving and working and it's all pretty calm and I think a lot and do nearly everything by myself and I don't mind. I think I can understand why people become hermits. It's nice to have the space to get to know yourself without having to worry too much about outside input. 

I mean that in as unselfish a way as something like that can be said. It isn't I don't love very many people in my life, or that I don't respect the opinions of others, because I do. But I am very - perhaps overly - sensitive, and having fewer external responses to filter through is a nice thing to be experiencing lately. 

That might sound nuts. I don't know. 

h.