Sitting Still with Squeaky

Sitting still is hard for me even in the best of times, but especially when I’m anxious. So, this time of stay at home orders and social distancing, has been a challenge. Recently I’ve reflected on another time when my health necessitated me to sit still and the lessons I learned from that are proving to be quite relevant today.

A few years ago I had a bad car accident. A friend and I were coming home from Seattle. It was rainy and snowy and windy and foggy.  Our car hydroplaned across three lanes of traffic, spun around and sideswiped a semi-truck. I was the passenger and my head and shoulder slammed into the side door and window. We were taken to a hospital in an ambulance.  I suffered a separated shoulder and a concussion.

While the shoulder injury was painful and took about a year of acupuncture, chiropractic, massage and physical therapy to heal, the head injury was the real doozey.

First I was just so tired.  I didn’t notice the headaches so much, as my whole body was in pain.  My doc gave me some pain pills, a note to take the week off work and some vague instructions about avoiding screens.  That first week was a blur of doctor appointments, calls with family, friends dropping off food and lots of naps. With my right arm in a sling, I couldn’t drive my stick shift car, so a friend swapped cars with me.

I went back to work after a week at home, but it was difficult.  My shoulder hurt from trying to work on the computer. But worse, my head throbbed. I had a hard time concentrating and simple words would not come out of my mouth. People would tell me things and I would forget it an hour later. The light and noise of our open concept work environment made it nearly impossible for me to be there.  I would come home from work utterly exhausted. I asked for and received permission to work from home.

Even from home, after about three hours of trying to work, I collapsed in tears of pain on the couch. My shoulder throbbed, my temple was on fire and there was a loud, inescapable piercing ringing in my ear. When I laid in bed, the whole room would spin.

I had a hard time accepting what was my body was telling me. I felt like I should be better. I felt guilty about missing work.  I got another doctor note to work half days and even with that, I was exhausted at the end of my shift.  

I couldn’t do so many of my favorite things. Live music and dancing were out, I couldn’t tolerate the lights or noise. Reading and watching TV gave me headaches.  My balance was off and even after my shoulder started to feel better, every time I tried to ride my bike, I ended up nauseous and with a severe headache. I couldn’t even hike on uneven surfaces. Walking on sand tired me immediately. Even driving in circumstances where the light was muddled could set off days of headaches.

This didn’t go on for weeks, it went on for months. I was discouraged and depressed. I didn’t know if I would ever return to normal again.

Finally, I got to the concussion clinic at OHSU. My occupational therapist assured me that everything I was experiencing was normal, that I would get better, but I just needed to STOP. I needed to stop trying to push through and soldier on. I needed to stop trying ride my bike and stop looking at screens. I needed to be still.

And so I did. I took a couple of weeks off of work. And I sat. I’d go in my backyard, fill the feeders and watch the birds for hours. On days I was feeling good, I’d take short drives to the Columbia Gorge or the Clackamas River, find a nice rock or stump and plant myself down and watch the water run, feel the sun on my face, smell the pine, listen for the osprey.

As I sat, questions came to me. Who was I, if I wasn’t writing, or working or riding my bike? What value do I bring as a human, when all the things that I use to define myself are taken away?  Those are some of the questions you might be asking yourself right now if you’re out of work, if you can’t focus, if you’re not with your family or community. They’re not easy ones to answer, but there’s value in pondering them.

Here are a few lessons I learned from my previous sit-still time, that are helping me now:

1. It’s okay to get nothing done. There is value in sitting still. By sitting still you allow the natural world to nourish you, bring you into the present moment and remind you that life is cyclical. This crisis will not last forever, but even in a pandemic, there is beauty. Birds still sing. Rainbows still appear. Kittens still do cute kitten things.
2. Sitting still is actually not doing nothing. In sitting, I was allowing my brain to heal. My body was doing a lot of work. Sitting now, we are also healing. The ever-present news of people getting sick and dying, being out of work and potential economic fallout takes an emotional and physical toll on the body. You may feel tempted to just keep pushing and doing things as you’ve always done to keep a sense of normalcy. It’s okay to not push now. It might actually be the thing you need.  
3. I kept telling myself during that time, that I should use the time off from work to do something productive—like do some writing. But after a conversation with a friend, she pointed out that “should” is not a helpful word. Creativity flows when it comes from a place of fun, and inspiration and love of topic, not “should.” The same is true of now. I’m giving myself permission to not come out of this with a best-selling novel, organized cupboards, a buff body or speaking a new language. If I come out of this time and I am alive and well, that is plenty.
4. Although I didn’t do any writing, other than journaling when I recovering from my head injury, I allowed my mind to meander, to noodle over things. I believe this opened me up to creating later on. The same is true now. I can sit and journal and make note of what going on in my day-to-day life. I likely won’t have the perspective to make meaning of it until some time has passed.
5. I would find these tiny spots, just off the trail and I would sit and revel in them, while so many people hiked quickly past, not noticing me, or the tiny bird in the bush or the sound of the breeze in the leaves or the small caddisfly bugs crawling slowly along the bottom of the stream in their wooden cocoons. (I learned what caddisfly bugs were during this time.) Normally I was the person hiking ahead for the next vista or waterfall, but whenI finally accepted that I couldn’t do that, l learned to find the beauty in the tiny things right before me. I’m trying to do that now and express gratitude for all that I do have.

Finally, I want to say, that it’s been three years since my accident. After the sitting still period, I did have to actually have to do quite a bit of physical and occupational therapy to get better. I’m happy to report that both my shoulder and my head feel pretty darn good today.