Tanja and I were eating lunch at a now defunct restaurant in the Pearl. Early days. My nervousness may have transferred to the waiter because this young man filled Tanja’s wine glass to the brim, as if he were pouring a beer. Across the room, the maitre d’ lost control of his eyebrows, swooped in and handled the situation, telling us with a smile, “this is Mark’s first day” and then gently instructed Mark on the proper pour. He took the brimming glass behind the bar and decanted into two glasses which Mark brought out, sheepishly, adorably, letting us know the overflow was on the house. Somehow it made us feel very much at home in this odd little spot and it may also speak to why the place is no longer in business.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you about that lunch.

We shared an appetizer of shrimp in garlic and oil, which, when it arrived, was just as simple as it sounded. I took a bite and found it absolutely delicious–perfectly cooked, beautifully seasoned in a way that I’d struggled to achieve in the home kitchen.

“I wish I could make shrimp well,” I lamented.

“That’s a sweet thought,” Tanja said, forking a prawn. “But the best vet in the world couldn’t make these shrimp well. It’s just too late.”

The point is, clearly, that living things are complicated things, with all these various systems working in concert to maintain this condition we call life. Most of the time, as these shrimp had no doubt done, we take it for granted. And thank god for that. Spend a few moments pondering the work your heart does–that it is doing right now–beat after beat after beat–and you quickly realize all this pondering is not helping at all and some processes, no matter how crucial, are best left to march to their own drummer.

And what about the less automatic stuff? For example, you merely think to move your hand and, lo, it moves. How does that work? What even is a thought? Where did that thought come from? Oh, we say it’s chemicals. Electricity. Nerves “speaking” to muscles. As if that explains it. It is crazy.

When we, at my job, were doing some branding for a cardiac center, the chief surgeon said, one day, out of nowhere, “You know how they say, ‘well, it’s not brain surgery’ where ‘brain surgery’ is the paradigm of complex, demanding work? But right now, with what we know about the brain, brain surgery isn’t, you know, rocket science. They don’t really know how to do much beyond cutting things out. It’s still relatively primitive.”

There may be some professional jealousy there, but the point is simple enough. There remain mysteries.

So, today Tanja had PT at 8 am, which is early for her these days. It was hard work but she said by the time she was done they were inventing new things for her to do just to make it challenging. She came home and napped. She woke up alone in the house for the first time in a month or more and she set to work. Did the laundry. Brought the bins back in from the curb. Cleaned and organize the bar area which had fallen into disarray as if the very bottles had taken up drinking. She made herself lunch. She finished catching up on the bills.

Kind of a normal day.

But her fingers are still cold which feels like death to her. And her toes have begun to feel cold.

“I think that’s a good sign,” I say. “The feeling is coming back and that’s what you’re noticing.”

“That’s possible,” she says. But she is unconvinced.

So am I. Nobody knows what is happening. Not really.

But we do know two things.

1. Tanja feels like a visitor in her own body and every day is full of strange and disconcerting sensations.
2. She is getting better every day in ways that feel small but which continue to surprise and delight the experts.

It’s all about patience and work, right now. Please stand by 🙂

To Earthward
--Robert Frost

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of—was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.