A Ballerina and a Skiier...December 16, 2021

For many weeks, I have bragged to be a ballerina and a skiier...at least long ago and far away.

So I twirled around, spun again, leaped in the air and landed...hard and fast and on my back.

Moments later when Peter found my phone, Liz was waiting for me to return to our call.

Um, Julie, are you okay?

Yup...only a little bit bumped from leg to arm to head...so the angels must have worked overtime.

For the fifth time in recent weeks.

And while the specifics of the falls vary...each happened when I was moving fast and distracted by this, that and another annoying or pleasurable thing.

A shiny object, yes, a shiny object.

When my talking was rushed with phone propped on shoulder, something else in hand, distracted crutching, without intention. Which all in all isn't surprising, given my proclivity for zigzagging and moving fast in life. As a girl, I would go on many hikes with my parents in the Black Hills. And they tell me now that I would never complain when tired...just start to trip, that wee toddling child fall right over.

Well, maybe like you, my grownup years spun ahead in that same fashion until...

...this past spring one night, my leg throbbed and I awoke...to ask why, why, why God why. A voice came, dripping in sadness and said...I am sorry it had to come to this, my child, truly sorry, but you would not stop.

You would not stop...

...and I was most surely stopped then and for a long time, lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling.

Now like you, my days once again revolve around movement, but it is oh so different. I wake to crutch around for a few hours, reset my step app, then take a deep breath and put on a very heavy prosthetic leg. While my victories come, so do some tears. But lest you think this is all a devastating change, it is surely not. Quite the reverse, in fact.

When I move now, my grandmother Grace's expression comes to my own face. For awhile I couldn't name it. Now I know, it is wonder at the beauty of surroundings...because life is not meant to be gulped but rather to be savored. My movements, like hers, are more intentional now. They have to be, for when not there is peril. To be sure, I will speed up and hopefully be able to move as quick as before, or nearly. But I dearly hope not to forget...

...what it is like to move with focus and look around, to see that it is very beautiful...or many moments and places, at least. To look up from our scurrying around, here, there and everywhere and even nowhere.

Ballet great Martha Graham's words implore, "All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away, unnoticed and unused."

Of course we must rest and sit sometimes too, or even lie right down on the floor for awhile...knowing that we will leap again, long from now or already tomorrow...

...yes we will leap again someday.