PT again

I am once again trying physical therapy. I am trying with a very nice woman in Provincetown, but two weeks into it, the ligaments in both legs are frighteningly painful. When I watch football and players are injured in their MCLs or ACLs, I know exactly what they’re talking about and wow do I sympathize. Beth Israel where I had my two knee operations pushes for physical therapy and my own doctor asks me why I’m not doing it. But most of my experiences with physical therapy are negative. They are always pushing me too hard so that I am injured and in a lot of pain. Woody thinks it’s because I look much younger than I am and so they expect me to be strong and able. I am strong in many respects but I don’t really see why I should be able to stand on one foot for five minutes. I do many of the ordinary tasks of my life. I want to be able to walk normally and for good distances. That is what I long for. I’d love to be able to dance again, but I’m unsure if that’s a reasonable expectation. I go out now to parties and meetings and events and restaurants and stores like a normal person. I write, I cook, I bake, I entertain, I do the laundry and dishes and mend. I just want to be able to walk without pain and to walk good distances. I have no desire to stand on my head or do somersaults. I wish I could kneel to plant but that is discouraged by doctor, pn, pa and pt…. We are talking about raised beds. We need to measure for them this weekend. I bought few bulbs this year. Normally I order a fair number and Woody digs and I plant. He’ll have to plant the 20 red emperor tulips and 20 gold crocuses I ordered, but I’m going to try to plant the 6 dark blue hyacinths because they go into a raised bed. I was able to plant all the seeds for greenhouse salads. This weekend is oysterfest. it used to be fun before thousands, more than twenty-thousand drunks take over the streets of our village and run about obnoxious and sometimes destructive. We are confined to our land. It’s impossible to do anything in town as Main Street is blocked off and cars are parked out to a mile away. We’re going to a party Saturday evening if we can get there. Last year it took an hour to go a distance that normally takes six minutes. We’re playing catch-up, my assistant Melenie and me. She and Jay had a wonderful time in Paris for 2½ weeks but now she’s back working for me 2 days a week and 3 for the Fine Arts Work Center.I have been writing maybe 3 poems a week. I have an idea for a short story I might start next week. the garlic I ordered has come so this weekend I will divide it up and Woody will plant it. That has always been my job. I enjoy it. But I can’t kneel. Also the bulbs must go in. It has been unseasonably warm this week but the pattern of drought that killed so many of my perennials and roses has been replaced by a far wetter pattern. We have had inches of rain, something we desperately needed. I wrote a haibun about drought this week, remembering how much we longed for rain for six and a half weeks. When it was cold before this warm spell, a mouse came into the house and was promptly caught. But we are enduring a plague of flies. I think I’ve killed close to 30 of them. I am hoping the cooler weather that’s supposed to arrive overnight will discourage them. Soon it’s time to put up the birdfeeders and buy sunflower seeds.