Good morning!

Thank you to everyone who lifted up prayers and good thoughts for me yesterday during my knee surgery. I could feel your love and am very thankful for it.

I will meet with the doctor on Monday and am hoping he will explain this picture that was sent home with me. Is this supposed to go in a scrapbook?

Anyway, not sure exactly what my prognosis is yet, but am feeling pretty good right now. The staff at St Alphonsus Hospital were very kind and took good care of me the short time I was there.

I’m home, slept well, taking my meds, taking it easy.

Which means I have lots of time to watch movies, eat the delicious meals kind people are bringing, and to rest and heal. Thankful to have a job with sick leave and with people willing to fill in for me while I heal.

As I look at my knee encased in its bandages, though, I’m thinking about running. While I don’t know my prognosis for sure, I’ve already been told I won’t be running or doing other high impact activities again. Hiking, biking, and swimming will be fine. But I will mourn the loss of running, even as I had a love/hate relationship with it when I could do it.

So I’m giving myself time to mourn what is lost, but I’m choosing to focus most of my energy on finding new ways to replace what I’ve lost.

And I think dancing is going to be it. I’m halfway through a 3 month belly dance class and am ready to sign up for the next session. Belly dance is low impact enough I think I’ll be able to continue with it.

I’ll also be able to ride the awesome bike my wonderful husband bought me for Christmas.

And I’ll be able to hike the trails I used to run.

So, I’m choosing to be thankful I still have so many options.

Because I also read this article about one of the people injured at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. She’s a dancer. Her foot had to be amputated because of the injuries she sustained. Here’s her comment:

“I just want people to know that you can come out of a situation that might seem like the end of the world and come out stronger,” she said.

So I’m praying for Adrianne Haslett and her recovery. I’m thankful for technology that has improved prosthetics. Her hope in the future after a tragedy like the marathon bombing is a reminder for all of us to have hope and to actively seek to make the world a better place.

And I’ll continue to seek my blessings, thankful to have so many within my reach.

And will close with this poem of Rilke’s, from The Book of Hours, II.16.

How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

Each thing–
each stone, blossom, child–
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.

If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

Seeking to be rooted so I can fly. Thankful for it all.