Dear friends and patient readers, I am sorry to have neglected you for so long. But the cause has been a good one! Three decades ago, I injured one knee, and four arthroscopies, lots of PT, and a good deal of pain later, it was time to give up and have the total knee replacement that had been planting itself securely in my path for the last several years.

I spent the latter part of autumn in aggressive physical therapy and preparation for the procedure. The surgery itself was in early December, and I've been rehabbing ever since. I'm doing very (very!) well, but this is a challenging surgery to have and to recover from-- lots of hard work involved. Much pain to be pushed through. I also returned to work months earlier than most people do after TKR; I'm a teacher, and I wasn't willing to be separated from my students for months. So, I gritted my teeth and was back at work only 4.5 weeks after surgery (for reference, most people don't return until 4-6 months postop).

Anyway, the last two and a half months since surgery have been about physical therapy, work, and recovering at home. Everything else has more or less been "back-burnered," including this blog. The experience has, in its own way, been surprisingly spiritual-- and one of the most interesting happenings was on the morning of Imbolc.

I woke up in the wee hours that morning-- around 4 am-- and wasn't sure why I had come awake. I sat for a moment and became aware of a sound-- like water was running. My first thought was that I'd left a faucet on, and I rushed to the kitchen and bathroom, but.... nothing. I then realized the sound was coming from outside. I went to the window and found that it was POURING-- the kind of rain that almost defies belief. Buckets of water-- Hollywood rain! Which is why I had heard it. I'm mostly deaf, and I usually can't hear rain at all. But this! This....

I went back to my bedroom, opened the blinds, opened the window a bit, and lay in bed just listening to it, so peacefully. I had the feeling it was some sort of gift for me-- as if I was being purified, washed clean in the earliest breath of spring, an Imbolc gift. I eventually fell back to sleep.

That morning, I had an early PT appointment. I was able to push through some scar tissue, feeling it pull away suddenly inside my knee, and almost instantly everything was easier and stronger, and my flexion, measured by the therapist, had gained several degrees-- this after weeks of it creeping up a scant degree at a time. The therapist said to me, "This is fabulous! You're over the hump-- everything's going to be easier from this point."

I smiled, thinking of the gift of rain from the night before, imagining it as some sort of metaphorical purification, my heart and soul rinsed clean, a "new improved me" with a new improved mostly-titanium knee, ready to greet my life from a fresh vantage.

With this renewed sense of energy and wholeness, I will be a more constant figure here, re-embracing this blog. May your realizations of spring be as sweet-- and if you live on the east coast and are still under several feet of snow, I'll do my best to push some warmth in your direction.