Knitting

This week has been a profound one, for me.

I won't go into it, because it really isn't interesting or relevant to anyone but me. But something clicked in my head, or in some space, physical or metaphysical, that constitutes 'me'.

Part of it was the progress with my shoulder blades. Ridiculous? No. Take a moment to revel in the miracle that is functional shoulders! Seriously! Right now! Feel the scapula glide across the muscle like blades through water. What a glorious, complex and delightful movement.

My focus for the past 6 days has been on pinching the bottom of my shoulder blades together. The shoulder internally rotates, which means it kinda rolls forward. The spectacular interconnectedness of our bodies means that this limits and distorts the movement of the rest of the arm.

I've found it incredibly helpful having a tangible goal to focus on, rather than 'Just move right'.

On Tuesday, so, yesterday, I turned up to therapy very excited, because Monday was the first day I felt the difference of the whole shoulder blade thing. The celebrations were short-lived! Well, not really. I'm treasuring this progress. It's just that in that session, we made another massive step, in establishing that not only do I have diminished levels of proprioception (awareness of how I am moving in space), but I have a lack of wrist extension and excess ulnar deviation (wrist sliding away towards the little finger). It's so obvious now that it's pointed out to me, but being able to focus on constantly adjusted the way I hold my right hand, at rest, when reaching, when typing, is empowering. Not radically empowering in the feminist kind of way (I don't know why that came into my head), because it is freaking hard. This pattern of muscle memory and brain pathway is solidly entrenched. In fact, I probably had a propensity towards ulnar deviation before anything went wrong. I remember my oboe teacher used to give me an earful at the way I held my lower hand. But empowering in the 'vision over visibility' kind of way. I don't know how I'm going to physically change these movements. But I've had a vision breathed into my stale heart that has markedly lifted my spirits.

Also, I'm learning more about the body as a whole. At balancing everything. Whilst I usually manipulate the right hand with the left, since Tues I've been trying to break that subconscious habit, and instead 'range' the the left wrist with the right hand.

I was tired today (I've been working hard at the gym, doing weights, exercises, eating very carefully, etc) so was less strict with the hand today. By that I mean I cooked my dinner mostly with my left hand, saving a bit of whisking with the right and putting a few things away.

Man, movement is so important to the expression of our self. SO important. Its delicate fragility is beautiful. And precious.

I was knitting last night. And although the knitting didn't make me think of this at the time, I'm looking at the knitting needles now which lead my mind down this path - the care and detail of knitting is a remarkable choice of imagery to use in Psalm 139. I'm not sure what is so remarkable about it yet. I'll have to mull over it a bit. But it is remarkable.

All those interconnected muscles, bones, ligaments - a single movement is the unified symphony of them all, swelling in stunning effortlessness and precision.

One day I will be like that again. Gliding through space and time.