Report from the floor.

I'm typing this lying on the floor. My knees are up and my computer is tilted, secured at an angle by my hipbones. It's not a bad lap desk, actually, though I wish I could do something about my neck.

Earlier today I was sitting on the floor in our new-home-that-is-old, combing Beatrice's hair, pinning it back with barrettes. I reached for one, and my back completely seized. I tried shifting around, standing, stretching, everything to stop the pain, but it just kept intensifying. More than anything, I felt shock, that I had managed to injure myself by doing a toddler's hair. Beatrice looked at me, curious. Then it stopped being interesting to her, my wincing and contorting. "Mama, up? Up now? Mama gets up now please?" A contractor had been in her room earlier, messing with the electricty, and there were live wires exposed in two of the sockets. She started toward them. They did look enticing, I'll admit. It was like something from a dream--her moving for the outlets, open and frizzing blue and red, me stuck in place, not sure of how to deter her. She's still at the age when actions are more effective than words. (I'm not. Actions interest me very little, generally speaking.) How to get between her and those wires. How to move without wanting to die from pain. Somehow, I squirmed and crawled, meekly uttering "no, no" through an unexpected gush of tears. Which only confused her further.

Brian was able to come to both of our rescues, and then I got a lot of advice from the Iskandrian medical network, and then I got pills. I'm excited for the pills, but more than anything, I'm brooding over what strange humors have been at work in my life, in my body, for some months now. Because there have been incidents. The hallucination-soaked flu in September. The apocalyptic storm at the beach. The move to the next zipcode that has seemed to thwart all normal behaviors of a move (the details sound like a pilot for an HGTV show). And now this, this horrid feeling of bone-against-flesh. Hippocratic medicine revolved around yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. I'm no Roman, but if I had to guess, I'd say that maybe my blood has thinned, my black bile thickened.

There was a time when I "exercised." (I really did, but somehow that word always belongs in quotes.) I wasn't any kind of iron girl, but I was fit. I can remember an odd moment, when Beatrice was being born, when the doctor who delivered her said, "You have such strong abdominal muscles!" I think I laughed and was secretly pleased.

Now, though? Now. I've gone scrawny and frail. I move all the time, bend, swoop, lift, carry, etc. But I don't "exercise." And this move, this old house, the work we've done to it--all of it just finally won. It was, as they say, a long time coming, a lot of detritus stored all up and down my spine, my back a veritable junk drawer for my body, phone books, take-out menus, a stapler, some recipes, a rusty hammer. I'm sad for my skeleton. And sort of...horrified. Beatrice and I are one year older as of the past ten days. This weekend she was supposed to visit her grandparents and cousins, be feted by them. She doesn't really know that she'll be missing anything, but I'm feeling all of it. And I'm making all kinds of resolutions from down here. To vacuum. To lift weights, gain muscle. To stop, once in a while, and just lay down, maybe on the floor, not because I hate everything or because my back has quit but because it's nice down here. I'm in the room that made me like this house to begin with, a sort of anteroom outside of our bedroom, and I have plans for wallpaper and an opulent lamp in the shape of a lady, and there's a small window, out of which I can, from my patch of rug and pillow, see some clouds.