My Sweater Song – Read This Thread as I Come Undone

(Are Your Shoes on the Wrong Feet?)

This morning my feet hurt as I walked around the house, cleaning up the kitchen, organizing the cupboards. Every step just felt wrong. Since my recent battle with plantar fasciitis and the unfortunate decision to allow the podiatrist to give me a steroid injection in my left heel, I’ve experienced constant discomfort in that foot, but this was different. I felt it in both feet, hampering my ability to move about. Every step just felt off.

I looked down my imitation UGG slippers and realized I had put them on the wrong feet. Once I swapped them around, everything felt back to normal, including the nagging, low-grade pain in my left heel.

Warm and cozy without the big name and big price tag.

Those slippers, I realized, were a metaphor for how I felt overall. I’ve felt “off” for the past week. I blamed it on the cold, rainy weather in Michigan not feeling anything at all like a warm, sunny Spring. But it’s deeper than that.

Things have felt off since I returned home from Tennessee last week. Once I left my father’s house, I drove two hours to the airport and dropped off the rental car, checked my bag, and headed to security. I went through the standard routine of placing my shoes, purse, and phone in one of the bins then then reached to add my sweater out of habit. Except I didn’t have my sweater.

My warm, cozy, cranberry-colored sweater – my snuggly traveling companion – had vanished. I plumbed my usually crisp memory but only found a boggy soup of jumbled images. Had I left it near the door at the rented cabin, hanging on the back of a kitchen chair at my father’s house, or tossed into the passenger seat of the rental car? I couldn’t summon a single memory of feeling the soft knitted fabric in my hand that morning. Regardless of where I left it, my $12 Costco cardigan was gone. No great financial loss, but I LIKED that sweater.

Later, after boarding the plane, I settled into my window seat. I always get a window seat if possible so I can lean against the wall, away from the middle seat passenger, and make a pillow of my sweater while I nap. I didn’t have my sweater, but I had my book, “Upstream,” selected essays by Mary Oliver, which I had picked up at Parnassus Bookstore at the Nashville airport. If you haven’t read it and enjoy her poetry, I urge you to grab a copy.

There I was, settled into my seat, wearing a mask because I am immunocompromised and I would like to avoid the millions of germs swirling around, wearing headphones to listen to soothing music, and my book open in my lap. Just as I began to relax, I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up. A burly gentleman stood in the aisle and gestured for me to remove my headphones. It turned out that I was in his seat. My assigned seat was 23F, but I sat in 23A, which was the window seat on the opposite side of the aisle. Somehow, I had transposed the seating in my head so that A-F ran from left to right if I faced the front of the plane instead of facing the back. Or vice versa.

As soon as I realized my mistake, I apologized and began to gather up my things - dropping my book, digging for it, getting my purse strap caught on the armrest, dropping my headphones on the person in the middle seat. He must have realized I was a disaster and offered to go ahead and sit in the open window seat that was originally designated for me. I thanked him for being so understanding and flexible. He probably wished he’d never said anything to me and sat there in the first place.

My husband picked me up from the airport Wednesday evening and we ordered a pizza for dinner because I was too tired to cook. Thursday through Sunday I didn’t do much more than light housekeeping with cooking, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping. I slept a lot and wrote very little. A blue fog hung over me every day.

Monday morning, I tried to get back into a routine. I headed to the gym bright and early. Due to my sore foot, I couldn’t use the treadmill, so I decided to go with the stationary bike, except all the bikes were occupied when I got there.

I hadn’t been to the gym in a month, but I remembered the same group of male retirees who gathered at the gym most weekday mornings. I can’t legitimately say that they worked out during their time at the gym. Usually, they sat and slow-pedaled the bikes while they chatted.

Grumbling to myself, I decided to begin with an upper-body workout. I hung up my jacket near the door and donned my headphones, turning toward the row of machines I wanted. As I queued up my workout playlist on my phone, a man slightly younger than me charged through the entry door, nearly colliding with me, and made a beeline for the machine I had selected.

“Seriously?” I thought to myself, my minimal desire to exercise fading. The first song on the playlist, “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, began and I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline from countless workouts fueled by that song. I opted to begin on a different machine and circle back to the one I wanted later.

After I finished my sets on the first two machines, I turned to find the rest of the upper-body machines occupied by the flock of retirees who were not actually doing any reps. Instead, they were leaning on the handgrips, engrossed in an animated conversation I couldn’t hear over the music.

Frustration washed over me, and I thought about saying something to them, but they are regulars at the gym and I have an erratic attendance. They arguably had better claim to the territory than me. Then I realized that if they were there, the bikes would be unoccupied. I hurried to claim my spot on the bike I prefer because it is the easiest to adjust to accommodate a short person. I pedaled my desired distance, yet I couldn't help but feel like something was off with my whole workout, and conversely, with my whole day.

Later, I attempted to write, but nothing would come out. Nothing good anyway. Instead, I submitted poetry to a couple Litmags figuring if I couldn’t be productive on the generative front, at least I could send some already completed work out into the world. But I hated everything I had in my completed work folder. I resisted the urge to just hit “delete” and banish all my work into the digital netherworld. Instead, I pressed “send” and made it someone else’s problem. Of course, it may have been more productive to spend the $5.00 in submission fees on a latte instead.

Tuesday morning began cold and rainy. We got up and out of the house early because both dogs had a morning appointment with the vet. Gidget McFidget just had routine bloodwork, but Bruce Wayne has had some intestinal upset recently with occasional spitting up for no reason and “unformed stools” as the vet described it. He is now forbidden the indulgence of human food, and we’re trying a prescribed a probiotic supplement to be sprinkled over his dinner.

Gidget didn’t appreciate the early morning adventure. She is happy to be back home and in her rightful place on her little throne in front of the fireplace.

Tuesday afternoon finally saw the sun emerge from the clouds, but my disposition did not turn sunny. After my daily lunchtime medication and forced couch nap, I woke up around 3:00 feeling quite groggy. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t shake the feeling of bees buzzing in my head and sodden sandbags in my body.

I had been looking forward to attending a poetry reading at 6:00, but I couldn't force myself to get ready to go. At 5:00, I sat on the bed in my underwear, staring at the clothes I had laid out earlier and felt the heaviest dread crushing me. I would rather jump into a woodchipper than sit in a room full of people and attempt to be social. The very thought of driving in rush-hour traffic drove me to the brink of a panic attack.

I crawled under the covers and curled into the fetal position and fought the urge to break out in full body-shaking sobs. My husband crawled in behind me as the big spoon and Gidget McFidget curled up at my feet. I’m sure the event was spectacular, but I didn’t attend. Maybe next time. There’s a poetry workshop Wednesday night. I think I could make it to that.

Today is a new day. I need to get out of this funk and put my shoes on the right feet. One day at a time, one step at a time, one shoe at a time, I can climb back out of the dark. Springtime is when my seasonal depression is supposed to go away, not get worse. Maybe new shoes will help, or possibly orthotics. I should probably get a new sweater.

Damn, I miss that sweater.