The truth is, I’ve had a problem with my ankle for five weeks now. I twisted it just a bit when I was playing tag with the boys, thought it was fine, went on what was a very excellent hike the next day (small canyons and wooden bridges and big stones), and halfway through that knew I had a problem.
And five weeks, three doctor’s appointments, two x-rays, one orthopedist appointment and one physio session later (they call it physio here, if you say PT they will look at you funny), I still have a problem with my ankle.
This is the ankle that gave way on me at my high school dance, meaning I had to have a guy carry me out to the car (as dances go, not a terrible way to end), the ankle that slammed sideways on a rocky set of steps going down to an Okinawan beach when Lincoln was a baby and I was carrying him. Which then led to me to get helped to the car by an old Okinawan farmer who promptly disappeared afterwards, leaving me with baby Lincoln in the back of my car, unable to drive and mosquitos all around.
After even stricter instructions this time to wear a brace/cast thing AT ALL TIMES, and one set of crutches later, I was particularly upset that this ankle injury has meant sitting on the couch when the boys are home for Easter break (two weeks long in Europe) and the weather had just turned nice.
Luckily for me, (is it though?) the weather has turned again and it’s been snowing the last three days. (Happy April!) Unluckily for me and everyone else, all the kids home from school can’t really spend hours outside. Also, in a real moment of covid irony, the Luxembourg government offered a long-coming act of good-will (or an attempt to pacify the people) by announcing that restaurant terraces would open this week, intending for people to have their first opportunity to eat at a restaurant in almost a year.
They announced the restaurants would open yesterday, and yesterday it started snowing. (This has led to a proliferation of good memes, which has greatly enhanced my couch-sitting-while-phone-scrolling.)
In the meantime, the boy’s school is closing for good at the end of the month due to no funds, (thanks covid), and the trip that we planned to cheer everyone up right after the closing we are going to have to cancel due to new restrictions. And right outside my window is an honest to goodness April snowstorm.
It means something, I think, that this has all happened at all, but especially that this has all seemed to cumulate around Easter. This last year we have watched the American families around us drop like the flies in our dining room on a cheerful July afternoon when Eliot has a fly swatter. It makes sense to move home when living away has been this hard. Our intention has always been to ride it out, but others have not been so lucky (or so dumb).
But in the waiting we have had to reinvent ourselves at least four times, from big house to small apartment, from schooling to homeschooling to schooling and about to start homeschooling again, from Joe working in the office to at home. From me trying to find a job to me not trying to find a job. We dabble in at least three languages every day.
There are lots of ways to talk about why we’ve stayed. Glennon Doyle says, “First the pain, then the rising”, Anne Lamott says that “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come”. But in the end, these brief quotes are just retellings of the story of Easter, a way to put the whole despair and glory of a dead and then alive God (talk about a reinvention) into a little paragraph so we can remember it better.
As a family we’ve given up before, moved on, but so far neither of us has felt the call to do that here. In the meantime, here are some things I say to remind the boys and myself: bodies heal, feelings pass, sometimes things are hard. (To myself one more time, bodies DO heal.) Snow stops falling, ankle ligaments re-knit, planes start flying again, vaccines will eventually come (yes, even to Europe). And if we never waited for Easter we’d miss the bright glorious morning that’s coming, with no death or ankle pain or snowstorms.
Through the hills in north Luxembourg, there are many old stone tunnels for walking and driving, and just before the entrance of every one is always a sign that posts the length of the tunnel. That’s the first thing the boys ask, every time, they want to know how many meters it is so we can know when to expect the light. And then, as soon as we get in, whether the tunnel said 200 meters or 700 meters, we keep our eyes on the horizon, at the most distant place so we can discern as soon as possible when the end is coming.
But every once in a while, when a tunnel is particularly long, and we know it, we look around at the darkness itself, the way the light from the lamps shines yellow, the dripping of the water and how it makes damp trails where the moss can grow in soft green lines. We can afford to, you see, because we saw the sign, we know it’s 1221 meters. We know the next moment, or maybe the moment after that, we’ll lift our eyes and see the glow.
And there have been a few things that have happened lately. They aren’t the light at the end of the tunnel, but they’re the slight faint glow where you squint at it for a while wondering if it is the light. Just a few things, like getting in to see an orthopedist and having four weeks of physio already booked, the fact it really was 68 before the snow moved back in, the terraces opening, a better job that’s happened for Joe and a few more writing opportunities for me. The fact we could even try to book tickets for a vacation, even if we have to cancel in the end. A new daily schedule that feels much more manageable with the boys home.
It’s coming. Like the halo around a bright angelic circle, like the way the sunshine spills in when a rock is moved away, like the sunrise in a clear sky when the snow clouds have moved away. And sometimes, like just in the last few days, I can even start to see it through the snow.
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