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With any kind of surgery, one needs time to heal. Here’s what I know: whatever amount of “healing time” is required, is toooo long. Lord knows we hate to “waste time,” even if it’s for healing.
There are upsides. This past week, unable to chew, I learned new Spanish words. “Perdone, tiene usted un menu con alimento por una paja?” (Do you have a menu with meals / food through a straw?)
With my face swollen, I think about healing. And managing pain. There are similarities to our wounded hearts and souls.
My periodontist told me, “Take the pain pill before you feel the pain.” I was certain that I missed the translation. I asked him to repeat it. He gave me the same instructions. Meaning, take the pill as (or when) the pain is beginning. Apparently, pain pills work better as a proactive preventative. We tend to wait until the pain is beyond the pale. Just like when we choose to slow down, you know, after we are drained and wrung dry.
Domingo (Sunday) is my favorite day here in Antigua. I sit in Parque Central. The park, almost a full city block square in the center of town, is flanked by the Cathedral. The park, every Sunday, is crowded with people. But it as if the pace has been ratcheted back by the very air that surrounds it. Families stroll, or sit together on benches, talking, laughing, as the children entertain themselves near the fountain in the middle of the park. No one is racing toward anything. I watch couples, not reticent to show affection, hug or kiss, and I can’t help but smile, and bask in their tenderness; and I toast them, sipping my drink through a straw.
I see Sunday’s in Parque Central in the same way I see my pain pills. They need to do their work proactive and preventative. I go to the park to heal.
Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself. Hermann Hesse
One Comment
>This is a very helpful insight. Thank you. I did not know this about pain memory. But it makes sense. In a similar way that our brain synapses (physically) are literally rewired when we become accustomed to "speed"–having things go faster, or needing things more IMMEDIATELY! So, in a sense, our brains cannot (or least would have a very difficult time) going back (returning to), say, rotary phones now that we are wired for instantaneous voice activated cell phones. Your comment also points to how easily it is to focus only on symptoms, and not on any underlying cause (even if it is phantom).