It's been a wild couple weeks. On December 5th I officially started walking again. It was a lot of lurching at first! Monday, December 7th we took the last wedge out of my boot. And then, after a week of walking and lurching, Robert and I took off for Minnesota for the third time this year.
This time had nothing to do with the Mayo Clinic though! After twenty years of trying, Robert managed to score us tickets to see Sara Groves, who is one of my favorite artists and someone whose music has literally changed my life. When I started college in the spring of 2004 I was alone in a new town. I started playing tennis with another student, Scott through a tennis club, and we became tennis buddies. We didn't talk much but at one point mentioned the schools we were going to and discovered we both attended church alone. We started taking turns going to each other's churches each Sunday and sometimes going to both. We played tennis and we went to church together but were very much painfully alone. Loneliness nearly ate me up as a kid and going to college was not a magical cure. I recognized he had his own issues with loneliness, but we did not talk about how alone we were or really anything of any substance. We were tennis buddies and provided each other company when going to church.
One day he lent a CD to me. It was Conversations by Sara Groves. Naturally the CD got stuck in the CD player in my car, and I was so mortified! Even though the CD was stuck in my car, it still played, and I listened to it nonstop. There were a handful of songs that were very reassuring at that time in my life and helped me feel less alone. Eventually I was able to get the CD back to Scott. Shortly after that he said he was going to Russia after his graduation to bring a bride home. Seriously! It was his decision, and I didn't feel it was my place to say anything. I didn't even really consider us friends. Outside of church and tennis we led different lives and didn't talk much about those lives. So I didn't say anything. And he disappeared. We sent emails initially, but his emails stopped suddenly, and I never heard from him again. I didn't think we were friends at the time, but he let me borrow a CD that very much gave me the strength I needed to survive a tough but soul-shaping couple years of my life.
One Sara Groves CD led to another and another, and with every new album there are a handful of songs that help me feel less like a stranger to myself.
Robert knows all this, understands how much her music means to me, and has tried to get tickets the past twenty years. Sara Groves sings at churches, women's conferences, and other semi-private events. The closest Robert got to getting tickets one year was by pretending to know someone in the church's congregation, which was the requirement for that particular concert.
The concert we finally scored tickets to was at Art House North, which is owned by Sara and her husband and located in their St. Paul neighborhood. It's a place that supports artists of all kinds and is appropriately in an old church. Robert bought the VIP tickets which included a Q&A with Sara Groves while enjoying pie and cider all while sitting together in pews. The Q&A was incredibly personal and also sad due to Sara Groves losing her father a week prior to the concert. One person in the audience asked Sara Groves if she was writing a song about her father, and she played us what she had composed thus far. Because this concert was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Conversations, Sara Groves had forgotten some of the music. She even ran home to get some of the music! She played piano, had her fabulous band backing her up, and shared her vocals with her daughter and two friends. She played the entire album, made a few mistakes, told stories behind the songs, and even invited the audience to sing one of the songs with her, which is a moment so precious I will take it with me for as long as I live and even past the grave.
It was brutally cold with piles of snow everywhere in St. Paul. Plus the church had stairs. I went from barely walking to tackling icy sidewalks, snow drifts, and stairs all in the matter of 24 hours. I walked into PT Monday and was not at all surprised to learn I was officially transitioning to a tennis shoe and wearing the boot only at night. My physical therapist said I may need a crutch the first few days of transitioning to a shoe, and I was like, "Dude I got this!" I had no issues the first day but the next day I was in the worst pain I've been in thus far on the achilles tear journey. I didn't use a crutch though and made it through a ten hour day at work. It's been tough but doable since then. I broke down and bought yet another pair of shoes though. I am wearing heel cups for the moment, so the tennis shoes I wore prior to the injury are way too tight with the heel cups in them. I bought a wide in my size, and the pain is better now. I hope nobody I know ever goes through an achilles tear, but I've been taking notes for ways to make it better if anyone asks.
I feel buoyed from the concert and ready to finish out the rest of the holiday rush at work while amping up my physical therapy. I've been told this next part is going to be difficult, but I think I'm in a good place to do the hard work. I also finally received confirmation that I graduated on Friday, which is a relief. I think I can finally heal from the library trauma now that I'm not constantly peeling back the bandaid so to speak. I chose not to go to the graduation ceremony. I really only have Robert to celebrate this small achievement with, and we haven't done the cap and gown thing at our other graduations. Also, the night of the commencement ceremony Robert I were on our way to Minnesota! I can't think of a better way to celebrate than seeing Sara Groves and hearing the songs that convinced me to keep trying.
I also made it back up to my office this weekend. I still need a chauffeur AKA Robert to climb the stairs, but I was thrilled to finally be in my special place where I can continue to sort, reflect, celebrate, accept, and unwind. Whatever art happens moving forward is going to have a lot of extra joy, hard work, intention, and striving going into it.
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