Driving with a Broken Wrist

Over the next few days, I will write about the Create in Me retreat. It's the first one we have had since 2019, and it was different:  a bit more low key, a more relaxed pace, but a great retreat. Today, let me write a bit about the trip in the car.

When I left, I thought I just had a sprained wrist. The drive up wasn't too bad, although for about the first hour I wondered if I was making a mistake. I had a soft brace on my hand and wrist, So I could still move my fingers. I couldn't clench the steering wheel, but my right hand could help with the steering and holding steady.

While I was away, I had my wrist splinted, so my right arm was bent, and I had less use of my fingers. I knew the trip back would be different. I had always planned to go back to Columbia to spend some time with a grad school friend on Sunday. I decided to make that trip, and if it turned out to be impossible, I would call my spouse and strategize.

It was not as easy as the trip up the mountain, but I thought that I could probably make the trip back to South Florida. I didn't want my spouse to have to fly up and drive the car back, and I didn't want to fly down and have to go back and get the car at some other point. So yesterday morning, off I went.

I was surprised at the amount of traffic:  lots of traffic between Columbia and Orangeburg and then again, for the first two hours after the Florida line. Happily, those times of heavy traffic were interspersed with times of less traffic. In the heavy traffic I kept my left arm tense and my attention super focused, and it was exhausting.

I finished the trip in South Florida with heavy rush hour traffic, even though it was only three o'clock--sigh. But in a way that was good; as the traffic slowed to 30 and 40 miles an hour, it meant that I didn't have the big trucks trundling by along with the cars that zip in and out of slower traffic. In short, it was easier to keep control of the car.

I got home looking like a drowned river rat. All that intense driving left me sweaty. But I did it! I don't recommend it. At one point during my odyssey last week, I thought about how I had said I needed to start working on my arms, but this is not the upper body workout I had in mind.

Would I do it again? If it meant I got to go on a wonderful retreat, yes I probably would. But hopefully, in the future, I won't have to make these kinds of choices. 

Broken Wrist Woes and Gratitude

 It has been a strange week. That is an understatement. A week ago it was Easter. It feels like a million years have passed since then.

On Wednesday, I got in the car and headed north. I knew I had a 10 hour drive in front of me, and for the first hour I wasn't sure I was going to be able to make this drive. But I really wanted to see friends and go on a retreat and get back to the mountains, and so I kept going.

On Thursday, my hand was the first thing that people noticed because my fingers were purple and swollen. I thought I was just in the bruised face of my sprained wrist, but several of my retreat friends are nurses and former PE teachers, and they recognize a break when they see it.  One of my retreat friends lives locally, and she told me about a great orthopedic urgent care that's in the same block as the camp entrance. I went over to have my wrist X-rayed at long last. My purple fingers concerned me too.

I was still hopeful it would just be a strain, a sprain, and that I would have spent money on X-rays for nothing. Why am I spending money on X-rays?  My former employer changed insurances, but didn't tell me, and as a person on COBRA, when they change insurance, I change insurance--long story short, I'm still waiting on insurance cards. Insert heavy sigh here.

Unfortunately, it is a break, and a break that may require surgery, a metal plate, and pins.  The doctor told me I have some time--no need to go racing back to South Florida. So they splinted my wrist and sent me on my way.  The next day, Friday, I did make an appointment with the South Florida orthopedic hand specialist, and I've been enjoying the Create in Me retreat.

It's been interesting to hear how many people have experience with broken wrists. I met two people during retreat week who broke their wrists in the same way that I did, a simple fall. My mother wrote me an email reminding me of her experience with a broken wrist; she too needed surgery, pins, and a plate. I had been feeling bad about not going to get an X-ray sooner. But I likely would have had to wait on surgery anyway--often there is waiting time because of swelling, and my wrist has been very swollen.

I am still feeling no pain. I realize I'm very lucky. I've been enjoying this retreat even though I can't do a lot of the activities. I've been experimenting with my left hand, and I've been remembering an art book that recommended working with our non-dominant hands.  I've had a few moments where I felt panicky, both about my own wrist and about the larger precariousness, how one minute we're fine and then one little trip over a sidewalk crack--which sometimes results in skinned knees, but can result in broken bones or worse. I'm thinking of Octavia Butler, gone too soon when she slipped and fell.

I'll write more about the retreat later. I am trying to get ahead with both grading and seminary work, since I do have an appointment with a hand surgeon on Thursday, and I don't want to get too far behind. We are at the end of the semester for both my teaching and my seminary student work. When this semester started back in January, I worried about the new Omicron variant, and I worried that my job might keep me from being successful with my classes.  A broken wrist was not on my radar screen of things to worry about. I am aware that I often worry about possible negative developments only to be blindsided by something else. Breaking that habit of worrying about the future may take more years than I have left.

Again I realize I am very lucky. I am grateful for the voice recognition that I have with my version of Word, for example.  I am grateful to be able to be at this retreat, broken wrist and all.

 

Sprained Wrist, Silences, and Writing

My sprained wrist makes traditional typing hard. But my version of Word lets me dictate, and I've spent the last hour writing a seminary paper this way, and thinking about if my writing process changes depending on mode: pen, typing, dictating.

At some point, maybe I'll experiment with alternate ways to create a blog post, but not today.  Today I must catch up on seminary in advance of travel and Create in Me retreat time this week. 

Triduum with Trip and Fall

 Early on Good Friday, I went for my daily walk.  Hours later, I made this Facebook post: Tripped on my morning walk--came down hard on my chin and right hand. Face is OK--landed on grass. Wrist is swollen and sore but responding well to ibuprofen, ice, and a wrist brace. Poet brain wants to make Good Friday connections, and seminary brain is grateful that because of Easter break, no written work is due until later next week. 

And this morning:  On a bright note: taking a lot of ibuprofen yesterday for my strained wrist means no pain this morning in my arthritic feet.

More details later--Typing is tough right now.

Quilt Camp, Eucharist, and Maundy Thursday

I realize that I haven't talked much about the religious aspect of Quilt Camp.  Even though it's held at Lutheridge, a Lutheran retreat center, it's less overtly religious than some of the adult programming there.  I've spent some time wondering if my friends of other faiths would like the retreat.  I think that all but my friends who are strict atheists (the type annoyed by religious people) would.

The room was set up with this space under the rock climbing wall.  From a distance, it looks like a simple stage, barely elevated, a display platform for quilts and rocking chairs--a way to give the huge room a touch of hominess.  

But it was where we faced for evening devotions, which were optional.  The last night we had communion.  We were able to do this because one of our participants is ordained by the Baptist church--during that brief moment when the Southern Baptists ordained women.

We had a wide variety of Christians in the group; if anyone was of another faith, or atheist, or agnostic, she didn't say.  After communion, one of the younger women made a group announcement.  She said that she had never been to a service where a woman handed her the elements for communion, and then, with her voice cracking into tears, she talked about how meaningful it was. 

Unlike other retreats, there was no Bible study, no group work; we spent most of our time at our individual tables sewing and sewing and sewing.  Occasionally there would be conversations, which occasionally turned to the topic of God.  One woman said to me, "It's in the Bible, right?  So therefore, we know it's true, right?"

Well, she did ask me, and so I gave her the gentle version of why we can't assert that, or at least why I can't assert that if she means true as in factual.  I talked about how I view the Bible as the writer of the text telling us of an experience of God, but not the only experience, and perhaps not even a true experience as we would define it today.  Having spent months studying the letters of Paul, I am not the person to lead your Bible study, if you want a leader who will tell you that God dictated the words to the Bible writer, so of course there's no bias.

She didn't run away in horror; in fact, we had a good conversation.  But I was also relieved that it was a casual conversation.  At the God Spa retreat, I heard some genuinely crummy theology (as in "God never gives us more than we can handle" and "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away"), but as a regular participant, I didn't see my role during group Bible study time to be the one who rips everyone's theological crutches out from under them.

I write this post on Maundy Thursday, a time when I might be writing about foot washing or meal sharing.  But the community I experienced at Quilt Camp seemed just as vivid a witness of the power of love in the world.  We were able to be together, in all of our variations of age, skill, knowledge, and resources.  We were able to cheer each other on.  We had lots of advice, for those who wanted it.  

I would love to see more Christian churches expand the vision of what it means to be a community based in love.  What would Maundy Thursday look like if we celebrated more than Jesus and 12 disciples and a last meal and a footwashing?

Last Look Back at Quilt Camp

A week ago, I'd be waking up at the house of a grad school friend, and shortly I'd be heading up to the mountains for Quilt Camp at Lutheridge.  What a great retreat.  I made a lot of FB posts, and I'm going to paste them here, along with some pictures, so that I can find them again.  Facebook is not nearly as searchable/readable as this blog.  I will leave the posts in a different font.

Here is my post from the first night, just a week ago.  I was able to log onto my seminary class, as well as the small group before the class--hurrah!

Retreat month continues! I am safe at Lutheridge, one of the places on earth where I most love being, ready for retreat #2: Quilt Camp! And thanks to the joy of modern technology, I can do my seminary classes each night. Seminary classes and Quilt Camp--perhaps I have died and gone to Heaven?

Thursday afternoon, I wrote this post:

Twenty-four hours after the start of Quilt Camp, I've gotten panels sewed together, and I'm beginning to think I might be able to get the whole top sewn together, and perhaps I might even be able to assemble it. I have fabric for the back with me, and plenty of near-by stores would sell me the batting.

I was not able to get the whole top sewn together, but I did assemble the back, and I did get to a store on Saturday that would sell me batting.

We ate so well:

I have consumed a week's worth of calories at breakfast:grits AND oatmeal! and bacon! and eggs! fresh fruit (cantaloupe and pineapple)! I didn't eat the scones, bagels, or other breads, and I didn't eat the Greek yogurt and granola.

Now, back to constructing the quilt top. If any sort of apocalypse falls on our heads today, I won't starve any time soon, due to all the snacks we brought and how much I have stored in my fat cells. And I've got plenty of fabric.

If an apocalypse falls on our heads, know that I'm happy: sewing fabric into quilts and catching up on seminary reading with the old-fashioned books I brought with me in case the internet was down.

I had my computer at my sewing station.  I was able to write a bit, sew a bit, on and on through the day.  It was wonderful.

At Quilt Camp, I leave my aging laptop in the Faith Center where the sewing tables are set up. The building is completely empty when we go for meals, and I did wonder if my computer was safe. Then I laughed at myself. Every woman in this room has a sewing machine that is more valuable than my computer--and many of those sewing machines may contain just as much in the way of electronics as my computer. These are not your grandmothers' Singer sewing machines. Alas.

I stayed up much later than usual each night.  On Thursday night, I made this post:

If it's 9:30 at night, and I'm ironing the fabric for the back of my quilt, am I really Kristin anymore? (You may or may not know that I usually go to bed about the time that toddlers do and that I almost never iron).

And then on Friday, started looking out for snow.  And then, we finally got some snow!  On Saturday, I walked outside in the morning, feeling sad that I had missed the snow.

But it snowed off and on throughout the day.

More snow showers at Lutheridge at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon--the best kind of snow, the kind that drifts outside of the window but doesn't accumulate on the ground, while I'm inside, finishing the last panel for my quilt top.

And by Saturday night, it was clear that I was not going to get my quilt assembled--but that was O.K.

I thought I might get enough panels done before Quilt Camp was over to put the quilt top together, but it's clear that I will not. On the bright side, I don't need to stay up all night sewing all the panels in the top together. And I have more time for design decisions.

Here's one last picture of the whole group--what a great group and what a great time!

Palm Sunday at the Quilt Retreat

 How do we respond when we meet the Divine in unexpected places?

How do we react to reminders that of God's humanity?

Can we  worship a God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition?

Do we believe in the promise that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances?