Forward

I've begun making a list of things I want to do when I can walk again. It's not yet in any particular order, and it assumes I'll have a little baby by then:

• go for a nice, long hike in the woods beside a stream with the baby in a carrier
• climb up and down the stairs several times a day, just because I can (I think this will be the easiest one)
• jump up out of my seat and cheer a touchdown (Ravens, Steelers, doesn't matter to me)
• join a yoga class and actually go
• take the baby and the dog for a walk every day, rain or shine
• sit cross-legged on the floor while I look at magazines
• dance with my husband
• go skiing on a gentle, blue slope (this one might take a while)
• stretch -- just stretch my legs endlessly

You get the idea. My current state is like being balled up inside a little box, like one of those contortionists from The Gong Show. Not only will my legs not do what I want them to, but the muscles are weak and so stiff -- I feel like I wish someone would just work me over with a rolling pin. For over four months now it's been hard to stretch, and fairly impossible to do any prenatal yoga, and the bigger my belly gets, the more distant those things become. I feel like a coiled spring, only without that pent-up kinetic energy. A rusty, old, frozen, coiled spring.

The kids and my mom and I watched "Homeward Bound" on Monday; it's a movie about an aging Golden Retriever, a puppy Boxer (I think) and a Himalayan cat -- all pets of one family, who misunderstand the family's decision to kennel them and end up making a long trek across country to try to get home. It's a real tearjerker, if you like animals, even though Michael J. Fox's voice is too recognizable for the puppy. The reason I bring this up is that all the women in the family cried when the furry friends found their way home (R was too upset by the movie to pay attention -- there are a lot of scenes of animals in mortal danger); I think I was the only one who actually cried with longing. See, the animals spend a lot of time in the mountains, traveling across beautiful summits and through gorgeous forests past rushing white water. They swim in holes at the base of waterfalls and see all manner of wildlife. I cried because I miss hiking so much. I miss being in the mountains and in the forest and in the water. I hadn't felt so sorry for myself since earlier in the summer when I realized I couldn't pick my nephew up out of his playpen -- because that meant I also wouldn't be able to pick up my own baby.

The good news is, I picked R up the other day when he fell and hurt himself on the hearth (I didn't realize at the time that he had just written on my chair and was climbing across its back, which is why he fell off). R weighs 38.5 pounds now, and I really shouldn't have picked him up, and I had to lean on the chair to hold him, but he was crying and so I picked him up. In other words, it may not all work perfectly right at the beginning, but I'm going to be able to pick up the baby, too. And I'm going to put her in a backpack and introduce her to the forests, and the mountains, and the rushing white water.