Today on my first time driving in over a month, I chanced upon four geese blocking the road in the Wash Park neighborhood. I have always maintained the ethic that geese have the right of way. More than once I have been stopped on a busy urban thoroughfare by a parade of geese taking their sweet time going across the road. It’s sort of like being stopped by a train, time to take a deep breath and turn up ‘Classic Vinyl’. Today’s interruption was close up and interesting. Three of the geese sped right along but their companion, who was dragging its left leg, was more than limping. They made it across and I was teleported back to about 1990 in Alamosa.
We lived out west of town on a ‘farmette’. To get to the main highway you had to head south to HWY 160. One of the great things about living out there was people had livestock. Our neighbors on the corner had six Canadian geese that they had domesticated. You would often see them walking in single file around the property. Five of them were intact but the sixth was missing a leg. How does a one-legged goose walk? Boing, boing, boing, and boing. This animal, like a three legged dog, had adapted to it’s situation. I was always amazed how well it did at keeping up, although it was always last.
Well, yesterday I spent an hour with my Primary Care Doc who, after a long series of questions and exercises, that included plenty of input from Mary Kay, gave me the all clear to go back to work and drive. Today, as I watched the wounded goose struggle, I went immediately to my condition of the last 34 days. As I shared last week I found myself semi-incapacitated. For the first time in my life I pondered what immobility looked and felt like. I will share that it was a state of low grade terror. As I watched the goose dragging its leg across the street, I was cheering every step.
I will never again run, climb, skip or ski. But I will never take walking for granted. Today returned to a bit of a normal Saturday routine, although a very slow one. I give thanks for that courageous goose and its buddies who reminded me of the importance of tenacity and making use of what we have… boing, boing, boing, boing.
Onward and Upward,
Mark
Lyfting Me Up 