Broken and Breakable

Shortly after my cycling accident last weekend, Andy was on the phone with Lauren trying to explain to her where the trail would cross the road and give her a little preparation for exactly how bad I looked.

"Give me the phone."

"What?"

"Give me the Goddamn telephone." Apparently there was something on my face (aside from the copious amounts of rapidly drying blood) that brooked no argument. I took the phone, gave Lauren precise directions and street names. When she asked "How are you?" I paused for a moment before answering.

"You know in The Moor when Russell gets dumped off of her horse onto the stone fence? Yeah, it's about like that except with more blood." She laughed and got off the line. I handed my cell phone back to Andy to supervise and he gave me a befuddled look. I hoped rather than believed that it was because of my calm command of the situation. I found out later it was because of the obscure pop culture reference I had made.

The reference was to a series of pulp-fiction detective novels Lauren and I both read. The series, written by the inimitable Laurie R. King, focuses on the escapades of Sherlock Holmes late in his career and his partner and wife Mary Russell.

I love the books for many, many reasons. My father has always been a fan of pulpy, detective/thriller novels and indulging in one always reminds me of him. I love King's writing style and her loyalty to the Conan Doyle canon. Most of all, I love (and want to be) Mary Russell. An academic theologian and a detective; a woman who can read half a dozen language and an admirable shot; a lover of beautiful things and someone who can rough it; capable of deep love and necessary distance, she represents so many of the ideals to which I hold myself.

Over the past week and a half I've been more or less a modified invalid. It hurts to get up and move around too terribly much, so I've been housebound. It's tedious, to say the least. Additionally, the amount of painkillers I've been on have left me either incredibly sleepy or unable to read a sentence and comprehend its meaning. I'm too restless to watch movies or television and I don't have a t.v. anyway. Thankfully, a few months ago Lauren's mom hooked me up with audio books of the Mary Russell series. Having a real, physical person read to me is perhaps the greatest pleasure in my life, with audio books as an almost-good-enough substitute. I can turn the Russell books on and fall into a familiar story. As I've read them so many times, it doesn't matter if I drift off for twenty minutes during one of the books. I can always find the thread of the plot upon waking. There's usually at least one good one-liner per book, and I've had one that I've been using on Murphy often over the past couple days whenever some admonition of hers proves to be right: "Lord, Holmes, isn't it dreary being right all the time?"

Late last week, propped up on my couch with a heating pad and a cup of coffee to hand, I was writing a letter and listening to a Russell book when a piece of King's writing nearly struck me dead. Russell, convalescing after being kidnapped and psychologically tortured (one of the charms of the detective genre is its flair for sensationalism) reflects on the difficulty of (what else?) vulnerability. She hates: "Holmes, who saw me in that despicable condition and burnt me with his compassion."

The hardest part about healing is not the pain in my ribs or the itchiness of the various scrapes and cuts as they heal. It is not even in the 2-5 weeks of waiting I have left before I am finally mended.

The hardest part is the burning, searing compassion in my friend's actions as they help me dress, move furniture, take out my garbage.

It is recognizing (however quietly) that I need them to do these things for me.

It is that despite the fact that I make my living thanking people for their generosity, I cannot even being to fathom how to say thank you now, when it matters most.

It is in admitting I am broken and breakable.