Time

"It will take time to heal," they say - all of them. The therapists, the doctors and the nursing staff; the hospital rector, concerned relatives and wise friends. "Just give it time." And those who know me, already know that I'm not good at this.

On my 40th birthday, I went for a run around Central Park in New York City. I was feeling fit, feeling good. Nathan and I found our pace and loped around the reservoir. We started overtaking people: I'm not normally competitive and I'm not going to make false claims about overtaking 'proper' runners, but I started focusing on the person ahead and trying to run past them. It felt satisfying - I may have just turned 40, but watch me run! Just after overtaking an elderly man with lean sinewy legs and shiny running shorts, something popped in my left calf. There was no question of running through the pain: I couldn't walk a step without wincing in agony. With Nathan's support, I began hobbling back towards the hotel. The elderly man overtook us once, ran another circuit of the reservoir, and overtook us again. He smiled at me the second time, and I thought of Aesop's fable about the tortoise and the hare.

Now I'm 41, and the possibility of even hobbling around the reservoir in Central Park is far beyond me. Car journeys exhaust me, short walks exhaust me, sitting in a chair on the veranda exhausts me. Worried that something might be wrong, I telephoned my physical therapist. There was a long pause after I explained my concerns about my fitness:  did I understand the extent of my surgery, she asked. Did I comprehend that it would take at least 12 weeks for the bone to have healed 80%? This was not a straightforward fracture, but a complex fusing of 4 vertebrae. No, she said, she would not give me more exercises to do. I needed to give myself time to heal.

This morning, I took my usual stroll around our woods with Nathan and the dog. The cat decided to join us as well. Ed is a a large overweight cat, built more for comfort than speed. He likes food and belly rubs and sleeping. Refusing to hurry, Ed followed us; miaowing loudly if we moved too far ahead. We soon began to move at his pace, pausing now and again to look at the sun filtering through the trees, the light dancing on the river, the color of the different mushrooms growing on the forest floor. Slow and steady as the elderly man in the shiny running shorts, Ed seemed to be demanding that I take my time, that I slow down and notice the world around me. He's sitting on my bed now, watching me, and waiting for me to sit down beside him. I can't help thinking he's trying to teach me a lesson too!