spring break

On winter solstice our house was filled with friends, feasting and fêting thru the long dark night. The next day we lolled around the house in our pajamas, while up in the mountains of Colorado, my skiing housemate was being broadsided by a snow boarder. She came back to us with a broken leg, a leg that had to be operated on a few weeks back. Still on crutches, she won’t be back on two feet for another month or so. Our community of friends have all provided support and succor, bringing meals, walking her dog, and driving her to the store. My fourteen year old son, Casey, has been especially attentive, always willing to bring a glass of water or carry a load of laundry down the back stairs.

Until yesterday, that is. Today is spring equinox, that strange day when light and dark are in perfect balance. I spent the morning mounting a phone campaign to find a doctor who could see my son. He broke his leg yesterday playing Lacrosse, which he was doing to, in his words “to toughen him up for football”. Yesterday his father and I spent the late afternoon and evening at the emergency room, our son’s face glazed over with pain, all of us in some kind of shock. Late this afternoon we saw a doctor who specializes in sports medicine. My skills as activist, witch, and therapist were all put into play in the winning of this appointment. My three hours on the phone paid off. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who are on their own, in pain, and without the resources available to me. You could wait weeks to get into a doctor if you simply accepted what you were told. My son’s fibula is broken on a growth plate. A ct scan later this week will rule out surgery.

I don’t believe in coincidence. Ilyse breaking her leg on solstice and Casey breaking his leg on equinox have meaning. What that meaning is, how these events are connected, I may never know. But I’m trying to pay attention. At the moment, there’s way too many crutches in the living room at any given moment, and being the one person in the house without a disability is challenging, to say the least. My other housemate is deaf, so every doorbell, ringing phone, or call from the other room has one recipient responding to it.

I’m trying to balance the light with the dark today. All of us will survive this. There are not bombs going off around us, and the irritation at being the one to have to run down and bring up the take-out Chinese is balanced by gratitude for the ready food on hand.

What a mystery this life is!