Exactly three years ago I wrote an elbow-appreciation post. I had weeded in short sleeves and developed painful poison-ivy rashes on both inner elbows. For several days I couldn’t bend my arms. I realized I had taken my arm joints for granted for 61 years.
Now I must discuss knees. On Memorial Day I worked creating a raised garden bed with Conor, the teenage boy I’ve hired as a gardener, and Caleb, Jim’s nephew. We worked for over four hours, digging trenches and installing a border of pavers. I was in constant motion, kneeling and standing back up. By the end of the session, my left knee, a problem since high school, could hardly tolerate weight and I limped into the house.
For the next several days I rested, careful not to twist the knee. I took the stairs one step at a time. My mom taught me the drill: down with the bad, up with the good. (This puts all the stress on the healthy knee.) But then I got careless and on Friday I was in worse pain than ever.
Monday was frustrating. I had to go up and down two flights of stairs multiple times with laundry baskets. It was so tedious. But I stayed true to my resolve to care for my knee. Down with the bad, up with the good. The tedium paid off: today I have no pain. I even ventured out for a two-mile walk on the Battle Road in Lincoln.
Speaking of the Battle Road (preserved in the Minuteman National Historical Park in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord): on April 19th, Patriots' Day, I completed my walking Paul Revere's ride (having walked from Paul Revere's house in Boston to Lexington the Saturday before). That Monday I started at Lexington's Hancock-Clarke House, and followed Mass Ave to the old Battle Road. There's a curving stone wall at Revere's Capture Site, where Revere was nearly shot and the British patrol confiscated his borrowed horse. From there, in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, Revere walked back to the Lexington Green where the Battle of Lexington was about to erupt. He walked in the pre-dawn; I walked at dusk. I'm grateful for knees.
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As I have discovered my Ancestors over the past several years, I have been thankful for so many things that one takes for granted.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can relate to appreciating my body's parts as I have just turned 72.
Speaking of the history of your area, I have traced the other side of my family to the Page's of that same area. The Nathaniel and Christopher Page homes were their residences. And there were many of their descendants who fought in the Revolutionary War..