Monday, October 6, 2014

While I Was Healing

Abdominal surgery: it's not something I recommend for everyone, but if modern medical science has a solution for what ails you and it involves cutting open your belly and poking around in your insides, it might be worth it. Even so, while I was out healing, I couldn't wait to get back to to the following:
  • Wearing outfits that don't include sweat pants
  • Taking care of myself
  • Taking care of other people
  • Going out to eat
  • A hearty belly laugh
  • A messy cry
  • Some semblance of routine
  • Coffee walks
  • Being active and running
  • Getting stuff done
  • Seeing people I know on a daily basis
  • Lifting things that need moving
  • Leaving the house to go shopping or whatever
  • Feeling energetic
  • Careless hugging

I can't complain a bit about the care I received when I couldn't very well care for myself. My mother scrubbed my tile bathroom! My friends visited me and brought me food! People sent me cards and flowers and treats and activity books! My husband worked from home a lot so he could make sure I wasn't going crazy with antsiness and loneliness! I felt loved.

While I was out, I felt like I had this gift of time to do whatever low-key activities I wanted. I thought I was made for such things as sitting in one place all day reading and writing! But even sitting around and healing takes a lot of energy. And while I probably fared better than many, 4 weeks is an awfully long time to sit without the ability do the things on the list above to break up the long stretches of time spent in stillness and solitude.  Even so, I found a few things to do, including:
  • Watched a mini-series called The Paradise
  • Read The Ladies Paradise, by Émile Zola (because I wanted to see if it read better than the mini-series. It did, though it was very long and contained a lot of descriptions of store displays in the haberdashery department, etc.)
  • Watched documentaries on topics such as:
    • Lego
    • Henry VIII's palace
    • how cars are made (though I forget which ones)
    • Selfridges
    • back-up vocalists
  • Watched a strange mini-series called A Young Doctor's Notebook that I'm not sure I'd recommend, though it did have John Hamm in it.
  • Watched several comedy specials:
    • Jim Gaffigan's Mr. Universe
    • John Mulaney's New In Town
    • Comedy Roundtable with Ben Stiller, Mike Myers, Seth Meyers, and Michael Ian Black
  • Watched movies:
    • Lego Movie
    • Amazing Spiderman II
    • The Other Woman
    • Remembrance
    • How to Marry a Millionaire
    • Under the Tuscan Sun
    • Moneyball
    • Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day
    • Stuck in Love
    • Silver Linings Playbook
    • Tiger Eyes 
    • Girl Most Likely
  • Started reading several books I fully intend to finish someday:
    • Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's Way
    • A Tale of Two Cities
    • Gone Girl
  • Finished reading several books I started once:
    • On Writing Well
    • The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
  • Continued reading several books I am in the middle of:
    • The Elusive Pimpernel
    • Walden
  • Worked on making my Halloween costume, which will be a peacock in flight!

3 comments:

Mike H. said...

Are the movies in order of how good they are or chronological order?

Also that is a lot of recovery. Good lucky over there.

Rachel Dull said...

Mike, the movies are listed mostly by order in which I remembered them, which I did by first recalling the medium by which I watched them. The first 3 I got from red box, then the next 3 are are on Netflix. Moneyball was on TV. Then I turned on Netflix to see the "recently watched" list and added the next 3. Finally, Tiger Eyes I added after I watched it yesterday afternoon!

As for quality rating, I think I liked Stuck in Love the best, but I would also say I liked Remembrance way more than I thought I would. The Silver Linings Playbook was disappointing because it didn't capitalize on the best parts of the book! But I didn't dislike any of the movies.

Josh said...

Wow, that's a lot of TV and reading. I might want abdominal surgery now!

I hope you're feeling better!