Wounded - Knee

TIME FOR REFLECTION
Belza Elia Ramos

Subject: Wounded Knee

Hola Belza

Wounded knee> It was a good fight.  I'm sure you'll win.   been thinking of your knee, my knees not too good either...

 Subject: Re: Wounded Knee
Hola Barbara
At least we've danced!
Belza

How appropriate, I thought reading her e-mail reply to my “Knee Update”, that my friend and mentor, Barbara Renaud Gonzalez, calls my problems with my knee “Wounded Knee” and “a good fight”.  “I’m sure you’ll win” she says.  Is she only referring to that long ago Massacre at Wounded Knee?  

Does she know “que le dio al clavo en la mera mera”?  She really hit the nail in the head!  My “wounded knee”, actually a torn meniscus, has made me realize how messy and clumsy I am and that I schedule myself too tightly.  That is my real battle.  I have spent 60 years cleaning up because of how I do things.  I know I’m 69, but my mother cleaned up after me the first nine. Then she laid down the law.   “It is time you start cleaning up after yourself.  Maybe then you will be more careful.”  Did she mean careful or care full?  I don’t know.   I attack anything I do with passion:  cooking, dancing, snorkeling, housecleaning or writing.  Do it, have fun doing it.  I think “I’ll clean up later”, confident I can clean the house in a jiffy before company comes or after my many volunteer activities.  Not so easy with a painful knee.

Take making breakfast, for instance.  This morning it is blueberry pancakes, eggs and bacon, cause I found some yummy, plump berries on special yesterday.  I really wanted to make them last night, but thought my son (temporarily my roommate) would think I am weird, having breakfast for dinner.  Ok, this morning and a lifetime of habit, I take out everything I am going to need and put it on the counter top. I am a VERY good sequential thinker, so everything is ready to eat at the same time.    And of course it begs eating first, clean up later.  My son has two servings of pancakes.  “Great breakfast, Mom.  Better than IHOP’s, as usual”.  Then he starts drawing out his remodeling plans for his lake house and we talk and talk.  The blueberries I dropped and stepped on are getting embedded in the tile grout; the spilled egg yolk on the stove is now the consistency of shellac; and the pancake batter balls on the countertop will make good necklace beads for my granddaughters.  Of course, this would be a daunting cleanup job anytime, but with my wounded knee, it will have to wait. 

Laundry – I can put a load in without too much pain, right?  The hamper even serves as a walker when I push it to the laundry room. Of course I stay in the office close by, so I can switch the clothes and pull them out as soon as the signals ring.  That prevents wrinkles, and I don’t have to iron. (Where is the iron?  The ironing board sits in the garage rusting.)  A couple of hours later after reading all the USA, World and Entertainment News and revising a story on my computer,  I wonder why I haven’t heard the washer/dryer signals.  Did I forget to turn the washer on?  No, I just block everything out when I read or write.  The clothes are half dry already as I switch them. O-kay.  I will clean up the bathroom across the hall, that way I’ll hear the signal. Can’t block everything out cleaning a bathroom, can you? 

Uh-huh.  My cell phone rings.  My friend Esilda wants to ask me a quick question.  Two hours later we hang up. Wonder why the dryer signal hasn’t rung.  The clothes are clumped together in the bottom of the dryer. The bathroom is not clean, since I sat down on the toilet seat when my knee started hurting.  Usually I continue the task at hand while holding the cell phone between my ear and shoulder and end up with a kink on my neck.  

It hurts my knee to hang up the clothes so I fold them neatly in the laundry basket.  I can leave out of the laundry basket for a few days, weeks.  Wait!  It’s been over a month since my knee started hurting.  I have been living out of the laundry basket, AND the kitchen countertop, AND my bathroom countertop for over a month!  Things I use regularly stay conveniently where I use them and the house now looks like, like… well, just messy. 

Little voice, shut up!  I know this is the way I live all the time, but now I have my wounded knee as an excuse. But, at least I’ve danced and enjoyed life along the way. 

Belza E. Ramos
October 7, 2009