Months.  That’s how long it’s been now. I am gaining my independence again, taking walks (I’m slower, have a limp, but am able) Hoping to get on my bike again soon, once I have enough strength and rotation in my arm to steady the bike, enough flexibility in my ankle to step down, catch myself. You wouldn’t know, from looking at me now, that I was wheelchair-bound, broken in ten places. Unless you see the scars.

I am grateful for spring, for all the things coming back to life, like I am.  I am grateful for my physical therapists, Marco, Colleen and Lydia, for the steady pushes and encouraging words. They have seen my stitches and small movements, my first steps, both forward and up.

I have mostly forgotten what it felt like to be so broken and wheelchair-bound. To have only one working arm and leg.  How much time it took my partner to help me dress and shower. How the back brace made movement hard and sleep a challenge. How Gant and Max and Emma and Betsy helped me navigate the outside world, getting me to appointments, and my studio.

How lucky I am to have them and you in my life. The meals brought, the money given to my Go Fund Me, the kind words, texts and cards. The flowers and plants that made my hospital room feel like a garden. Menderin, Emily and Casey who cared for me, helped me get through the surgeries, the nights, the skills I needed to learn to go home. For Chris, who called the television stations because he was so angry at what had happened, and had to do something to help.  And even though the man who hit me never turned himself in, hasn’t been found, it did help get the word out, remind people how quickly a life can change and end, how paying attention and taking care is so vital.

I am grateful for the blood that was donated to me, the clean cadaver bone that rebuilt my heel. The hours the surgeons put into repairing me—both in the operating room and in all the visits since. The kind man who fitted me for my back brace, tearing up when he thought about how many people he had to fit braces for because they too have been hit by a car.

Last weekend, out working in the garden, neighbors came by, couldn’t believe how I was out there, on my feet, looking so well.  They had brought soup and groceries, watched through the winter all the rolling me up and down the ramp, all the care I needed.

A spider built a web this morning, practically invisible until the light hit it.  Long thin strands between the table and chair–such strength and beauty. The web you have all built for me, stretching over distance and time, has tethered me, protected me, fed me, given me a place to land. I don’t know how to thank you, except to say it.  I am so lucky to know each and everyone of you, to be in your thoughts and care.

Hopefully see you at music, on a walk, riding past on a bike. On next weekend in my studio—its Art-A-Whirl.

So happy to be here, alive and well.          

Julia