Dear Family and Friends
In Real and Virtual Lands

It has been ten weeks now since I’ve been on school vacation. Too long. I’ve spent all this time in Paris, with a cool fall-like summer that had a mere handful of truly lovely warm/hot days.

Today it’s a lovely, blue-skied fall day. After a mega-storm last night that flooded my kitchen floor via the rotting wood on the French doors leading to the balcony, the temps dropped considerably and the apartment needed heat – not the first time in the last three months, alas — for a half hour — to take off the night’s chill. For those of you do not remember, my apartment building is facing north and living on the top floor with no insulation in the eaves above me, the apartment chills quickly.

For the second time in four months, actually twice this week, Pierre was here. He left this morning for a pre-excavation session in Bahrain where he will be for the next ten days. He is slowly but surely getting to know my new kitten Gao (again for those of you not reading my blog space on Writing.Com or my page on FaceBook) who I adopted in June. He’s a black and white lover-boy who purrs all the time and daily contests my status as Alpha Cat. He recently put two lovely holes in my right thumb, which, combined with my chronic tendonitis and budding arthrosis of both thumbs, has given me yet another reason to abandon my 75-90 minutes of daily piano practice. I say daily, but there have been periods over the last ten weeks that I have been literally unable to do anything – write on the computer or iPad and play the piano.

All of the preceding explain why no one has heard from me in quite a long time. Typing in a quick update on FaceBook or posting new photos of Gao Cat (gao is Chinese for “tall” and his adoptive family’s choice for a name) does not tire my right hand. Already I’ve been at this letter fifteen minutes and it’s showing signs of fatigue. I’ve made it my project today to finish and mail this letter to all interested in the same light many of my family members send out regular “Dear Family” letters, either monthly or annually.

I am sorry not to have the strength in my hand to personalize anything for the time being. But I’m certain you will all agree that broad general news is better than silence.

It was back in October of 2010 that my second (and last) physical therapist (who I have seen almost weekly since that date) emitted a diagnosis of my hand and elbow problems as tendonitis. This has been confirmed by my general practitioner and a series of x-rays. Even though I had made my osteopath aware of these painful areas three years earlier, he, a double bass and percussion player used to the same kind of strain a pianist puts on his hands, did not seem to think there could be anything wrong with my muscular system, insisting that the problems were a nasty extension of my scoliosis and it’s repercussions on my skeleton. I stopped seeing that doctor, after almost five years of care, two years ago this month.

Anyway, it’s been two years now since my first physical therapist evaluated my leg length and determined that I do indeed have one longer than the other and has prescribed shoe inserts which have helped enormously stabilizing my back and pelvis. No cure, mind you, but a distinct help.

Massage and regular “torture” over the last 11 months have greatly helped my right forearm/wrist/elbow structure, but once a problem has been allowed (for whatever reason) to become chronic, there is not a lot one can do for a cure. 11 months has been a long time, and during this period I have all but stopped playing the piano for professional reasons. I tinker around with my left hand as much as I can during classes with my students, but this school year I have abandoned all of my choral accompanying responsibilities as my hand cannot play using force, extension (playing over a six-note span) or multiple notes.

Both PT have given me exercises to strengthen my back, thus affecting the dorsal region where I still have tension which boomerangs down to my wrist. Medication helps the arthrosis in the base of my two thumbs, and that problem, while sometimes painful, does not keep me away from the piano. My tummy has become a bit more muscled instead of “overgrown” although I am not carrying any extra weight for my height. I have limbered up my back sufficiently to have less and less problems, all of which will eventually help alleviate additional stress on my arms.

But, as I have already said, 11 months is not a long time to efficiently deal with this kind of problem.

I’m sorry not to have much positive to say. My poetry writing has all but come to a stand still, and for three months this year, both Pierre and I truly believed our relationship had come to its end. Over the last month only have we begun to successfully piece together the broken parts after 14 years and both of us are once more hopeful concerning our future.

Gao has been a godsend through these last months of solitude. Not being able to do much more at the piano other than do my scales and five-finger exercises and occasionally get as far as my nine etudes, I can certainly no longer merely sit at the piano and play what would normally sooth my heart. So, I’ve become once again (although the days of Shadow, Esterelle and Pistache ended in 2001) a PapaCat.

We had a nasty scare on the 24th of July when he fell from my fourth floor balcony. He spent two days in the vet hospital and ended up with only a fracture on his upper jaw, which gives him a slightly lopsided smile! I had trained him for two weeks previously with his leash, so that he could learn to look over the edge of the balcony and learn about balancing on pots of plants, etc. That particular Sunday it was warm and balmy (not one of the summer’s hot days…) and after an hour reading on the stoop of the French doors from my bedroom while he was busy at the other end by the kitchen, I thought all was OK. He’d mastered the balcony with his leash, and although this was not the first time he had been there without the leash, it was the first time that whenever he changed sides of the balcony I followed him like a mother hen to keep him from spending too much time looking at the sidewalk below.

So, over the edge he went. The most plausible reason is that he was scared by a sparrow and tried to give a paw swipe between the iron railing bars, and over he went. I looked up just as I saw his white belly go overboard, and we were at the vet’s ten minutes later. I have never been to have chosen the vet three blocks away with an emergency service at night and on Sundays!

He’s fine now, but no longer goes out on the balcony. I’m certain he remembers and would shy away from the edge, because there are places in the apartment he can climb up onto, but he refuses to jump down directly to the floor from those one meter eighty heights. And this seems to tell me he’s learned to be afraid of heights. But I’m not taking any more chances until he’s big enough so his shoulders can no longer fit between the railing bars.

I start teaching in two days. YEAH! To replace my former five hours of choral accompaniment, I have begun what I’m calling 4-hand Workshops. But that means also being at the conservatory daily from Tuesday to Saturday. I’m idally hoping for four students per each hour’s workshop (currently there are four programmed into my schedule), and the object is to teach them the joys of playing with another musician. I’m also hoping that this project will be successful and that I can eventually reduce my teaching hours to include more Workshop hours. The Workshops will begin with the four students divided into pairs; eventually I hope that each student will be able to play at least one piece with each of the three other partners in their hour. It’s all new to me, as I’ve played little four-hand repertoire in my life. There is a myriad of pieces to choose from, and I’ve downloaded many free PDF files from the internet.

So, I have a new project. And I’m starting a new year, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s got to be better than the last one! I can’t have a second year like I did from September 2010 to now.

Here’s hoping you are all well.
I won’t promise anything, but will try to send out a Dear Family and Friends letter more frequently than just once a year.

Love to all,
alfred

There are more good days than bad days. Typing is still the activity that stresses my right wrist the most regularly. I've gotten the piano to an hour and a half a day, some days it's like I've never had any problems.

My back and the resulting migraines, however, have escalated. It's been over five weeks now since Pierre and I are trying to decide what kind of future we can have in our lop-sided relationship and that we haven't spoken.

So I'm tense, I'm angry and I'm lonelier than usual. Thus my back is reminding me how miserable I am. Even though my heartache isn't greater than it has always been because of the "hello-goodbye" nature of a relationship between two cities that's lasted almost until our fourteenth anniversary.

I haven't written much poetry since april's double marathon when I wrote nigh on sixty poems. I've revised two or three. The same problem, typing at the machine, keeps me from either writing new ones or revising old ones.
For those who will sugget it, writing by hand is worse!
And there are days also that the light finger-tapping on my iPad hurts my wrist just as much as the computer keyboard.

The springtime in the Paris region has been wonderful.
Hot, sunny and dry.
Records have been set, and there is a majority of the country that is under drought alerts because of the lack of rain.

Last night we had a mega thunderstorm with torrential rain (I FarceBrooked about that) in my neighborhood that coincided perfectly with the ending of the film I watched: Luc Besson's 1988 film "Le grand bleu." Which I had never seen. And which tingled me in places I haven't been tingled in a long time.
I cried more during this film than I have for a long time.
I'd almost begun to think that all my tears for anything had dried up.

I have lived most of my life in the prison of my childhood relationship with my family, a prison not even the love of several great men has been able to help me to break out of. In the film, the relationship between Johanna and Jacques reminded me so much of how the box I live in is so impermeable to anyone trying to get my heart to beat harmoniously in rhythm with theirs.

I've been in therapy many times in my life (the first time was when I was 10 because my mother was worried that I had become antisocial having no close friends. Like DUH, when everybody calls you EggHead, you really don't want to have anything to do with them, do you?)
I've never really thought about it, but antisocial does describe me fairly well. I never know what to say to people. I'm always worried that I won't appear good enough, intelligent enough, sensitive enough or anything else enough in their eyes.

Anyway, I know myself and my quirks and faults very well. But all of this, plus the love of a good man, has never been enough to set me free of the prison my childhood has made of my life. And to be honest, that's a hell of a lot to ask of any single human being, much less my lover.

And now that I'm having trouble playing the piano, and above all playing the music that speaks to my heart, I'm lost and do not know how to find a way around the insanity that seems to lurk in the dark every time I turn out the lights.

OK. That's a tad melodramatic. A tad. Silence is not a good thing.
But it accurately describes what I feel today.
It's been over five weeks since the phone rang.
Over five weeks since I've spoken to anyone other than a shop vendor or my students.
I see myself more and more like my mother, who I have watched all of her adult life grasp onto a handful of people she called her friends, hoping not to find herself alone in life. She even married a perfect idiot so as not to have to be alone. I fortunately have not made that particular mistake.
But neither of us know how to make friendships (and relationships built on love?) work and last.

That's where I am right now. Alone.
I don't know if I can get used to it.
So I sleep in order to forget. Ten hours a night if the neighbors let me.
By the bye, the noisy kids moved out. There is a new couple who are still in the process of moving in. Translate: sliding furniture over the parquet floor to newer and better positions, regular serenades with the drills and hammers of week-end handy-persons. They work evenings like me, but unlike me, get up and moving two hours minimum earlier than I do.
But sleep is a welcome remedy right now.
Most nights I dream pleasantly. I guess that means I can survive this new shit that's hit the fan I call my life.

There are good days and bad days.
The tendons are healing, the muscles in my right forearm react violently to misuse (i.e. 5 hours of choir rehearsal at the Conservatory on Wednesdays), but they no longer inflame the tendons, so that's something, I guess. But the recovery time is still as fickle: sometimes less than a day, sometimes up to two days.
I've ceased all activity with my Parisian Choir - the Fauré Requiem that's being prepared is just too difficult for my hands right now.
I say hands. Because the arthrosis/arthritis problems in my thumbs, although they react well to therapy, make playing chords complicated.
But, like Scarlett, I'm not one to complain.
Or am I?

Since this is National Poetry Month, I'm writing daily again.
There are two series of poems, those found traditionally in Scattered leaves... and a new book specially created for a new forum of prompts.
That, people, means I'm writing two poems a day, and posting them. Lots of reading to do.
HINT
HINT

Here are the links. Please click and then add them to your favorites. I can't be everywhere all the time and right now it's more important to write poetry again.
Blogging will have to wait until there is something other than pain in my life to bitch about.
Poetry's better...
Innit?

"30 poetic items for april or katya, 2011"   by alfred booth, wanbli ska
"Scattered leaves with poetic imprints"   by alfred booth, wanbli ska

To The Asking Boy:
The pain is not permanent, Joe, and is in relationship to the use/abuse I place my thumbs/wrist/elbow under. I'm learning, slowly but surely, to be gentler with my hands. Less of a brute.
Writing will come of its own accord. Knowing what's wrong with part of my hands has had a huge calming effect on me.

To my favorite Page Turner:
(although we've never worked together)
There is not a lot one can do for arthrosis problems, and I feel for the time being that I am under good care, most especially with my Physical Therapist. Both of us speak the same language concerning my own body. She has a great visionary capacity with her patients.

To Kåre:
Yes, the French state health system is OK, but if you don't have a rider policy and have major (hospitalization, for example) problems, you still have to have a decent bank account.
AND while I thought the best procedure was to completely rest my hands, I was depressed at the loss of being able to be me. Playing the piano is who I am. Only part of me is a writer and I'm finding it's less painful on my soul not to write than it is not to play the piano.
Making music is such a personal art.

To Summer:
There is no free help anywhere in today's medical worlds. But there are solutions and I am not in constant pain. Yet. I hope that my problems will never become that severe and truly believe that continuing to exercise my hands is the best solution.
My "tortured life" is real, but it's more emotional stress and baggage from my childhood. It's familiar!

To Ms Chewie Kittie:
Thanks so much for stopping by.

To Ms. Scarlett O'Hare:
I just love post names for physical illness, don't you? Rhisarthrosis. Can't beat that for posh. Fortunately I do not have cancer. What a horrible word that one!
Will you join me in a fancy restaurant if one of us wins the lottery?
On another subject, my braces will only take an hour and a half of my time, and I one week to wait for an appointment is correct. But had I done so at the hospital where the specialists practice their "art" I would have waited much longer.

THUS:
I am forced to live with the pain, unless medication truly helps on that front. The warmer weather helps the blood circulation which keeps the area toxin free. This morning the temps dropped again, and I feel it in my thumbs.
AIN'T it grand to get old?

AND:
The X-rays did NOT indicate anything wrong with the fleshy parts of the hands, so we must assume that the tendons are healing well. However, after just ten minutes this morning at the computer, my hand is sore.
Continuing to practice the piano will be good for the thumbs, but not necessarily so for the right wrist.
OH:
That also means that my general practitioner will be forced to admit that the desires of my Physical Therapist that I wear night braces for my thumbs is a good idea. Now that he has X-rays and a paper signed by the radiologist mentioning the magic word "ARTHROSIS," he'll have to react properly like a good doctor. I see him this afternoon.
IDEALLY:
These braces should be tailor made by specialists and I should also have ones to use while I practice the piano, to impede any strange movements that will aggravate the thumbs.
WHERE WILL THE MONEY COME FROM TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS?
French health insurance (without a rider policy as yet to be arranged) will cover about 50% percent of the expenses, which is already a reassurance to me. For the time being I'll have to go with ready-made support which I can buy today at a particular pharmacy (drug store) in Paris, but they may not have the selection I have already found on the internet. Special made ones means I wait for an appointment with the specialist who will decide what I need, and then wait even longer for the braces to be hand crafted to my specific wrist/thumbs.
I WANT RELIEF NOW. Not in a month!