elfs | Physical Therapy, Day Eight.

This morning, the alarm went off at 5:30 and I was up and out the door in ten minutes. Having my gym bag and my work bag already packed, the laptop and the cell phone already charged, and breakfast and lunch already assembled in the 'fridge made it easy to just go. Except that I forgot to have my morning drug regimen together-- the anti-inflammatories and collagen-building aminos, as well as my usual multi-vitamin. Another thing for the checklist.

I made it to the pool on time and was in and going shortly thereafter. At first, I thought I was gonna wimp out at three hundred meters, but I pushed through it and managed to get to 600, what I did last time. I took a few deep breaths and decided to go for 700. Then, "What the Hell," and did another 50, crawl. The pool was significantly less crowded than last time.

I dressed quickly, in a bit of a daze, the dizziness threatening constantly. The nausea came back-- I hadn't felt it on Monday-- but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been. I got into the car and drove home. I got back with ten minutes to spare until my bus came, so I made a batch of coffee and by the time I had gotten down to the bus stop I was feeling much better. So much so that I opened up the laptop and shredded through a thousand words in the half-hour the commute takes. I'm not happy with the way things are going. This is supposed to be a Reservationist story told from a periphery point of view-- a character directly involved, but personally isolated and very internal. Well, it reads that way, but she's quite the difficult character to get laid. I'm working on it.

And there was this magnificent rainbow this morning! The sun was coming up over the Cascade ridge to the east, just above the horizon, and the rays struck this squall coming over Puget Sound to the west, and the resulting rainbow stretched from West Seattle to Queen Anne, over the whole Sound like something out of a Bible story. The colors were sharply defined, very crisp, and the whole arch was there. There was even a second, surrounding arch, although it was much dimmer. The squall broke south as we drove north, the rainbow fading as if someone were slowly pulling a curtain away to reveal the Olympic mountain range glowing in the morning light.

The weather is gray and ugly now, typical Seattle. But for a moment there, we had hope for a nicer day.