The time has come to try to rebuild a life. I am more and more determined to be stronger each day and while I am greatly limited I want very badly some feeling of normalcy and routine past my oxycodone every 4 hours. My version of building this new life is admittedly scaled down to an event or so a day. There's no getting crazy up in this house. I've signed up for a cake decorating class "buttercream basics" and am excited to perfect my 45 and 90 degree wrist angle when piping a buttercream buttercup. You all think this is the comedic relief piece but frosting flowers are deadly serious stuff. It begins on Tuesday and I've already found reason to complain about it due to the extensive list of "supplies" required for the class. This makes me want to whine for two reasons: 1) extensive=expensive, especially at JoAnne Fabrics. and 2) it makes me feel like a 4th grader with a class supplies list which brings up painfully repressed awkward childhood memories.
Regardless however, Tuesday my buttercream dreams begin. I love to bake, cakes being my particular favorite and working to hone a skill doing something I love I hope will make me feel a little more like the person I had come to believe I had created. This sickness has taken my independence in many ways; I depend almost exclusively on my family to transport me anywhere I need to go and provide me with anything I need. The chronic pain and the drugs have dulled my wits and sucked the joy from my soul, like a tiny dementor has taken up residence in my chest. It may be a small thing, but piping the best scallop in the class or accomplishing a perfectly smooth finish on my cake feels like waving my spatula like a wand and banishing that darkness, allowing me to see me in the mirror again.
My second project has been turning my attention towards my Italy trip which grows ever nearer. We have made the decision to amend our original itinerary due to its ambition: we had planned to see Rome, Tuscany, and Naples, before returning to Rome to enjoy a last few days. Since I am exceedingly less mobile now than I was when we came up with this plan we have decided to scale down our ambitions dramatically and instead spend an extended period of time in beautiful Tuscany, first in the countryside outside of Florence and then enjoying the comforts of our own rented house in Lucca, birthplace of Italy's greatest opera composer, author of the music that runs through my blood, Giacomo Puccini. Lucca is hosting an italian music festival to which we have tickets. John Legend is playing and as we are all rabid fans it seemed a most sublime setting for a fantastic musician playing in the hallowed halls of the musical greats who came before him. It also doesn't hurt that Lucca is also known for its fantastic local cheese and salumi!
Meanwhile, while I try to keep my head spinning around on its axis, I am still far from the recovery I had hoped for. My energy comes and goes and just when I'm sure I'm quit of one painful side effect or another, it comes roaring back and knocks me back down again. My days go smoother when I take naps, which I detest as they are horrid wastes of time. I don't quite have the activities to fill up that time anyway but regardless, I resent the loss of daylight per force of habit. I hope with my little steps and frosted roses to inch my way back to needing and using all of my daylight.
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