ZOOT SIMS AND STAN ROGERS

They have nothing in common, of course, except I provide a small link because I knew Zoot
when I was in my early thirties, including my 33^rd year, and now, on this, the 33^rd day of my BROKEN LEG SAGA,  it is Zoot’s 90^th birthday, - Happy Birthday to him. I am marking it by celebrating the release of my leg from the beastly cast I’ve been forced into all this while (I can take it off at home, according to the doctor). As for Stan, he wrote the famous song called “The Mary Ellen Carter”, and with my new-found freedom I, like that ship, shall ‘rise again’.

I WILL bend my leg; I WILL walk normally; I WILL swim and exercise.  And I will kneel in prayerful thanksgiving on this day (“oh beautiful mother”…)

 

Happy?  Yes, - and almost back.  Speriamo.

 

But now I must go and give my knee and leg a special treat for healing so well.  I mean – do YOU know how to knit bone together, dear reader?  I certainly don’t, but that knee did it – all by itself.  Hey Hallmark – how about that new market?  Cards to body parts that do a great job for you. Just think of the athletes’ spending alone.

Why oh why don't they have a function to right the photos?


And I WILL dance again - missed the annual
dance-in-the-woods this year

 

 

AUTUMN LEAVING

The summer has left, and soon autumn will leave too, and then the cold begins, and goes deep into my bones....I dream of warm Agrigento and the sea.  My neighbour on the street where I live came to Canada from Italy, and another town by the sea.  We commiserate in the park while she walks her dog, and I walk my leg. 

The big break, the fame; the success so wished-for by performers, and  'break a leg!' wished on us by others before a gig – hey, it's  NOT LITERALLY, EH?   We didn't really want to break a part of our body; it's just a traditional theatre saying....Tell that to my tibia.

But four weeks have passed already and I live in hope that the fracture is healing as it ought, and that when I go back to the doctor next Wednesday, he will say the magic words, and I will throw away the cast/brace, and won't have to walk the military march anymore.

I still want world peace, of course, as all the beauty contest winners say, but I really want my leg in one piece. I want to run and jump like the other children.

 

However I won't complain.  I got out last Friday, sexy cast and all, which I highlighted by draping my skirt to show it better, festooned with flowers-; and I sang some tunes with the jazz band.  Oh, but 'twas good to be sort of normal again. (until the WheelTrans arrived to take the invalid home early). Here are some pics - sorry about the sideways one:

 

 

Meanwhile, anxiously awaiting the new x-rays this coming week, to see if I can jettison the iron leg and get back to real life and activities like the following:

 

 

And in a few more weeks the ice will be back in the rinks and I will be out there skating, - singing to the trees, and sucking that icy air into my lungs, and loving it. (as seen in my youtube video “Skating, Skating

 

 

A KINDER, SLOWER WORLD

-         and I don't mean kinder in the sense of everyone being nice to each other  - although many people have in fact been more than kind and helpful to me, in this my distressful time.

No, I mean kinder in the short “i” pronunciation, in the sense of 'kindergarten': minding the children.

-         The recent break in my leg, and my current life in a cast-like brace, has forced me into a little break from regular life. Besides being a literal pain in the ass, since my exercise and muscle health are not what they usually are, and the lumbar area is not breathing properly – it's an enforced, - shall we be positive and say, - 'opportunity' - to see, to experience, to be patient.

-         Ah, yes, patience, for the super slow pace of everything now. Which brings me to the kindergarten. Having been a supply teacher in classrooms back when I had two legs, I find that I have to treat myself as if I was a bumbling and dependent group of little five or six-year-olds.

-         OK, class, it's time to get dressed to go outside; everyone line up quietly; fingers on lips; watching me; walking – I SAID WALKING!!. And like those crazy kids, I take forever to get from one room to another; to stand up and wash at the sink; don't even mention getting on the toilet with a two-by-four attached to your groin. And then to get the clothing on: one piece at a time, with loving encouragement, discipline, gentle reminders of attention, and patience, always patience. Again, don't mention putting a sock on. We try and teach creativity too, and give praise for new solutions and understanding when we just cannot reach our foot because we can't bend the leg.  Very good, little Maisie. Robert, please don't leave the crutch on the floor like that where someone might trip on it and BREAK THEIR LEG!!

-         All ready, children? Oh, oh, there's the bell.  I'm sorry, darlings, recess is over. OK, everyone, let's get these clothes off, and get back to the other room....

-         And I repeat the same type of scenario all day long for whichever of the few activities available to me that I attempt.  I save a shower for a long, long stretch, backing in and onto the portable seat I hope does not slide, then lifting my needy leg with the curved end of the cane around the foot, up, up, up and over the old person's bathtub grip, recently loaned and installed, - a reminder of infirmity which is most definitely not a fashionable design item. I hardly ever wash my hair anymore. I wear my clothes to bed.  I'm lovely. And sometimes, when other people shop for me and drive me places, and cook me meals, I get bored and bad enough to think I should keep this break going for a while.

-         But I know, really I do, it's an opportunity, and now I think of it, a unique one, - to steal away from the world: reading, stretching, eating, watching movies; taking slow, careful, smell-the-roses walks, listening to music, visiting with visitors, and most of all, to appreciate the mobility I used to have.

-         And those sweet, dull, repetitive, noisy and obnoxious little children, - those empty vessels? Which for me are all the new little synapses and muscle and nerve endings that are ever-so-slowly healing and learning? At the end of the day, they have grown into better people, with some love, we hope, for the teacher who collapses into bed each night, swinging and slinging the leg onto the mattress, and slowly, gently, in as quickly as fifteen minutes or so, rolling herself over to sleep, dreaming of swimming and running, and riding her bike – oh, glory! Oh happy day! Riding a bike!.

 

Here I am dreaming of swimming in lovely warm Mediterraean waters: (photo by Chris)

 

 

P.S.  This is a kinder, much better world here in Canada today, (in the being kind sense) because the people finally woke up and got rid of evil Harper.  Thank you, thank you, all who voted him out!

 

 

 

BROKEN DREAMS

Broken dreams in Sicily
Broken bones in leg and knee
Broken streets with holes that are uncovered.....

You know the tune 'silent nights with my guitar'.  that's the melody.

And yes, they left a drainage ditch with just one little part not covered by the grills that were over the rest of it, and down I went.  And crack went the bone.
Now, many many euros later for a last-minute direct flight home, it's a pain, but I'll live.

While I was still in Sicily, however, the man who ran the B&B where I stayed was an angel, a veritable saviour, who helped me in everything and organized so much for me - I can't thank him enough, but I have written a song about him and his help that will be on youtube soon.
Watch for "Francesco Superman" - in Italian with English subtitles.

Meanwhile, the deadly ditch:

 

 

me in the Helsinki airport just on my way to Rome:

 

 

I will post more photos of Italy, but here I am suddenly back in Toronto, trying to keep my leg in circulation:

 

 

 

and finally, feeling great in the local park, and being just a little daring with my crutch and cane:

 

 

 

Really?  A lot of times I feel like this instead:

 

 

 

This is actually a good position, if the legs were just a little more down; the hip joint right on the edge of the sofa - for the shiatsu master electric rolling massage thing that I bought at a home show many years ago and never use.  Now it does its magic on the poor sacroiliac joint which doesn't get the movement it needs what with the leg in the thing it's in. 

 

Gate 403, Roncesvalles Avenue, Friday, October 23.  9pm. I will be there.  I will sing.

I will probably collapse early.

CANTANTE E CONTENTA, IO

that'sa me.
cantante means singer, and contenta means happy; io means me. I liked the sound of the words.  almost another song.
and that just about sums it up.  i mean, there's no point in being miserable, is there, just because you were in a gorgeous hot and sunny city on the south coast of Sicily and you broke your leg and had to be put in 'gesso' - a cast - and returned subito to the cold of Toronto.

No, no point at all.  So i'll take the sun and warmth of Italy and the people I met and just ride out this misery.  Porca miseria, as they say.  

Can't walk very well, or even sit at the piano to sing, but I'll figure out a new system, won't I ?  'Where there's a will, there's a way', as one of my hated teachers in grade school used to say, but she was right.  I have a friend now who says, 'where there's a will, there's a relative'.  ha ha, that's true too.

Got lots of pictures, but not with me, because i'm just in this place, using a free computer, for an interview with Wheel Trans, the system run by toronto's public transport, which picks up all the disabled people and brings them wherever for the cost of a bus ticket.  Amazing, really, and I'm most grateful for that.
So next time I get to a computer - chi sa quando? - who knows when, I will post the pics.
In the meantime, it's nice of this hotel to let me sit here and write.
ciao for now