Organ Recitals

 

“Then the podiatrist looked at my little toe and said, ‘Lady, what you have is a…’” But just as things are about to get interesting my friend claps her hand over her mouth and says, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to bore you with an organ recital!” If you are a woman of a certain age, you know that the phrase “organ recital” does not necessarily refer to a performance of Bach in a cathedral. 

Why do so many women feel apologetic about mentioning a wonky knee or a sore neck? Though clearly in distress, they smile through their pain and heroically refuse to talk about “unpleasant things.” Even if their health concerns dominate their inner life, they think that bringing up these issues is a failure of stoicism and an imposition on their listeners.  

I disagree. Not only do I not mind organ recitals, but I often find them entertaining and instructive. There are myriad ways in which the aging body betrays us, and myriad ways in which each individual chooses to deal with these betrayals. I think them all fascinating, and not in a morbid way. 

However, as with the Bach recitals, much depends on the performer. A whiny or self-pitying tone makes me want to change the subject at the earliest opportunity, as does a solo that goes on and on. But if told briefly, with a rueful smile and a sense of irony, these tales have much to offer. They can be informative (who knew that aloe vera is good for arthritis?), and they can also be inspiring. When someone recovering from major surgery mentions that she’s just walked two miles, it puts my own complaints in proportion and gives me the push I need to trudge all the way to the top of the hill. 

Listening to organ recitals is one way in which we can support each other, too. It is no use pretending that our bodies are not often on our minds, and if listening to a friend’s concerns makes her feel less alone, I could do worse than lend her an ear. And when it’s my turn at the instrument, it comforts me to know that I have a sympathetic audience. 

We are embodied creatures, destined to experience pain. Animals instinctively isolate themselves when they are ill, to keep predators from noticing their weakness. But we are verbal, social beings, and the occasional organ recital, done moderately and in chosen company, can be as healing and consoling as listening to Bach.

New Shoes

Good-looking shoes--the kind that add height and subtract weight, taper the line from hip to toe, and sound the final chord to an outfit--were the last plank I clung to from the shipwreck of my youth. Until this week, my only concession to a painful, soon-to-be-replaced hip was to wear ballet-like flats with petal-thin soles. Before that, I wore shoes with heels a couple of inches high. And before that, stilettos. 

I come by my shoe fixation honestly. In her 90s, my diminutive paternal grandmother toddled on the cobbled streets of Barcelona in high heeled shoes with a strap across the instep. I, on the other hand, diagnosed with flat feet, clumped around in lace-up boots while my classmates gloried in their patent leather Mary Janes. “When the child is old enough to wear high heels,” the doctor assured my mother, “the arches will improve.” So when I turned sixteen my mother, who forbade make-up of any kind, tolerated kitten heels, which I wore daily as my sole badge of grown-up femininity. 

In the barefoot 1960s I wore wedge-heeled espadrilles, which were succeeded in the 70s by history’s weirdest footwear, wavy-soled Famolares (“walk better in waves” was the company's  motto).  In the 1980s, when career women walked to work in shoulder-padded suits and tennis shoes, I stuck to heels. I would trudge up College Hill in what my daughters called the shoes of death, lugging a briefcase full of books and corrected exams. The trip from home to office and back was close to four miles, and I walked it proudly and even briskly, every day. As the years passed I resigned myself to slightly lower, thicker heels. But except for swimming, I always wore heels. Even my bedroom slippers had little heels. 

All this came crashing down last week when my physical therapist looked down at my ballet flats, suppressed a giggle, and wrote a prescription for athletic shoes that she promised would lessen the pain. I have sacrificed much to vanity in my life, but faced with a disintegrating hip I decided to take the therapist’s advice and get some reasonable shoes. 

And now here they are, at the end of my legs, the proper shoes for my age and circumstance, a blight on the landscape. If my spike-heeled shoes were the footwear equivalent, in looks and sexiness if not in speed, of a sports car, my flats were modest sedans. My new athletic shoes--a size larger and wider than I normally wear, shock-absorbent, padded, cuffed, their soles inflated like snow tires --are the equivalent of a pair of SUVs. 

Ugh! 

Also, they pose wardrobe dilemmas. I can’t wear them with skirts, leggings, narrow pants, or even jeans because they drag down the look. Ballooning below my ankles, for all their lighter-than-air technology they make me look like a duck, an elephant, a whale. 

The only thing I can possibly wear them with is sweats. 

Looking on the bright side, however, since I’m supposed to wear these locomotion enablers 24/7, and I only own a single pair of sweats, I’ll have an excuse to go shopping. Online, of course. But that will not be a problem, since fit is not a factor with sweats. 

And I have to admit that, when I go for a walk, the SUVs on my feet make me feel less like the Little Mermaid than those lissome ballet flats did. Possibly, even, the relaxed look on my face somewhat compensates for the clunkiness of my footwear. 

Did I mention that I also have a cane?

Hostages To Fortune

“He that hath a wife and children,” said Bacon, “hath given hostages to Fortune.”

I say “She that hath pets and critters hath given hostages to Fortune too.”

Spent a day with vets on Wednesday. In the morning Blossom and Alsiki were carefully and thoroughly sonogrammed (didn't think “sonogram” was anything other than a noun, but what do I know?). The results were dispiriting: no deep shadows indicating babies—just the lumpy, bumpy outlines of the rumen. Neither goat is pregnant. That means no babies, no milk, no cheese in the foreseeable future.

In the afternoon I took lame Lexi for x-rays and a diagnosis. She has torn the cruciate ligament in her knee. Moreover, she has arthritic elbows, arthritic hips, and an arthritic spine. (No wonder she doesn't want to move.) Surgery could repair the ligament, but it would do nothing for her other joints.

She'll be eleven in July. Even before she tore the ligament, I had to entice her outdoors with pieces of mozzarella. Ligament surgery has a 12-week recovery period during which the dog is not supposed to move much. After three months of that regimen Lexi would have to be carried outside.

So we're in palliative mode. She's on anti-inflammatories. She will have acupuncture and chiropractic sessions—even Chinese herbs if they look like they might help. But no heroic measures.

I didn't know this stage would come so soon. My once-lively Lexi has become a kind of hearth rug. Her hind quarters are shrunken and her chest and shoulders are huge, because she uses them to pull herself along. The other day I lured her outside while I threw balls for Wolfie. At one point she looked at me in her intent, can't-be-ignored way. “Throw one for me!” she said. So I did, only about six feet away. She hobbled towards the ball, stopped halfway, then lay down. I looked away.

One thing she still loves is eating. She weighs 84 pounds, about ten more than she should. Every extra pound on those joints causes more pain, so I feed her less and less all the time. She's down to two cups a day. I suppose it's the right thing to do, but she doesn't think so, and neither do I.