I am talking to you from the ground.

Where I lay pitched to one side, my shin throbbing and my cheek pressed against the grass. The 30-gallon bucket of birdseed I was carrying is at eye level and has strewn its contents on the other side of the cement steps, leading from our porch, to the backyard.

Dennis is here, beside me, saying, Oh, Lisa, not again. I raise my head, acknowledging his presence, gasp, and rest my head back down to the ground. Jesus, did I just fall again?

An hour before, Dennis cleaned the windows of our porch as I was finishing Boho Beautiful’s Pilates 21-Day Challenge, a full-body 25-minute workout. For his benefit and my own commiseration, I had repeated “this is so hard” throughout the various exercises; the workout ending with heel beats, airplane, and grasshopper pulses. You know, the kind of drill that hours later leaves you with the feeling that your glutes are bleeding. Having completed the last exercise, I got up off the floor, relieved to take pleasure in walking our dog, Sabrina.

We strolled the neighborhood. The weather was optimal. Despite the downer of the pandemic, people were out in their yards, raking and planting, and chatting with neighbors. Kids rode their bikes, squealing with laughter. I felt gratitude. With a capital G. For the glorious weather, the blue sky, our home, the feel-good feeling emanating from inside my body, despite the unexpected ripples of change that had recently occurred in my life.

I had lost my full-time job on May 1st due to the impact the virus has had on the economy. I loved my job, but it was intense, and although I would have never left it by my own volition, I embraced the news. I had told my manager, “It’ll open up space for my memoir to get picked up.” And, I thought, give me the opportunity to kick up my workouts and fold in a daily guided meditation or two.

It would not be so seamless.

Two days after I lost my job, Dennis, Sabrina, and I were at the start of our favorite five-mile hike at Callahan State Park in Framingham. The first mile of “hiking the pipe” is a steep incline. A fallen limb laid unseen in the mud and as I stepped on it, it rolled under my foot and my person crashed down hard to the ground, on my left knee. Sabrina retreated to my side. Dennis entwined his arm in mine, helped me up, and started wiping mud off my face.

My knee blew up. My mother saw the ace bandage around my leg the next day. She was parked at the end of our driveway, and I stood talking to her by the garage. When I told her we finished the hike after I fell, she said I must not have hurt it too badly.

I had hurt it badly; I went on meds to reduce the inflammation. The injury put an indefinite end to my riding horses, doing HIIT, and running a few times a week, and left me no choice but to seek alternative means of exercise. Calamity continues to become me.

That fall took place on May 3rd. From where I’m talking to you right now, on the ground with my cheek mashed to the grass, sending out reconnaissance throughout my body for further injury, it’s May 25th. It dawns on me, Did any of my neighbors see me go down? Defeat and embarrassment seep into my every cell. Then, Why has my gravitational pull toward the earth been so much stronger lately?

Dennis is crouching beside me, patiently, observing the questions running through my mind. He knows what I’m asking myself. Does he have an answer as to why I keep falling?

I sit up. The skin of my left chin, just below the injury site of the first fall, is torn and beginning to swell. Dennis is waiting for some kind of communication from me. I say I’m okay. He helps me up. We pile what we can of the birdseed back into the bucket. Numb (traumatized), I top off my feeders, and for the remainder of the afternoon, sit in my chair in the porch, granting myself permission to blow off doing any work, and with a heap of ice on my elevated leg, watch the birds feed and bathe, and three chipmunks duke it out over the spilled seed. There are libations in the evening.

The following morning, I wake, feeling blue and teary-eyed. Dennis is “occupied” in the bathroom and I sink into one of the dining room chairs and begin to sulk. Sabrina nudges my elbow, Hey, what’s wrong? I reflect on the positive changes I’ve made in my routine.

For nearly every day for a month and a half I’ve been listening to Bob Proctor’s Calm Guided Meditation to Gain Abundance, Love & Happiness. It’s given me “calmness of mind,” which is “a beautiful jewel of life” and the ability to use my imagination to build the world I want.

Upon waking, I listen to one of a handful of 10-minute guided meditations for gratitude and have learned I want for nothing and my life is so full of everything wonderful that it’s stupefying.

I started practicing Boho Beautiful’s Yin Yoga after managing a Pilates workout to open up my hips and stretch out my glutes.

These are all good things, and I am grateful I sought them out and will continue to practice them. But I still feel defeated and full of self-pity. I’m injured (what’s with this falling sh*t?), my weight is not where I want it (fruit is really not a carb and why can’t I stop binge-drinking on the weekends?), and I’ve received no word back from the agents I’ve been pitching for my memoir (some of the pitches date back to November).

And that’s when it hits me. Clear as a bell. Unmistakably. Powerfully. Amazingly.

Three words of inspiration. From the Source. Yesterday.

Sabrina and I had been walking by one of our neighbor’s houses. There was a guy working in his yard, listening to music, as he spread mulch in and around his hedges. Being an 80s girl, I recognized the song that was playing, the chorus, three words of which I only heard, assimilated, and then immediately dismissed.

The words suddenly resonated: Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel singing, “Don’t Give Up.”

It’s a message from the Universe, directed to me, of loving support. It knows I’m here. It knows I’m feeling discouraged and falling in defeat. It hears the desires I seek. It’s telling me, “don’t give up.”

I’ve stopped sulking and I’m getting on with my day.

Despite my bum leg, I’m not giving up.

Thank you, Universe, for acknowledging me. I am grateful.

~