Terra Tenebris

I cut my toenails and pressed duct tape onto the bottom right side of my right foot. A seven-year-old injury rendered the foot immobile, barely able to nod in yes, totally unable to shake in no. Seven years. The anniversary of the injury passed last month without my noting of it. It took seven years for it to be just another day. Seven years to just go about my day, not acknowledging one of the worst things to ever happen to me. Maybe one of the best things to ever happen to me. I slipped my foot into my shoe, hoping that the duct tape would prevent friction and hot spots. It worked 15 years ago when I did ultramarathon hikes that rendered my body wrung by sun exposure and straight-up powerline trails, my muscles swimming like fish in my thighs. Where are you going to go? my husband Brian asked as I slipped my other, less injured foot, ankle full of protruding metal, into its shoe. Just to the wetlands and back, probably. After ensuring that yes, I did have my reflective vest and flashlight, he kissed me goodbye.

A climbing wall gym? Why don’t you just go to the zoo like normal people? my dad asked as my boyfriend Brian and I were about to head to Pittsburgh for our Valentine’s Day date. Brian knew how to belay and I always wanted to try climbing, so I figured that an afternoon of climbing would be romantic. I smiled at my dad. At this point, I wish that I was normal people on that day. We arrived at the climbing wall gym and the staff tested Brian’s belaying skills after we slipped our feet into sleek climbing shoes. Ladies first, so I slipped into the gear and looked up the 40’ wall, speckled with foot and hand-holds. We all watched a man climb the wall so convincingly like a spider that I would not have doubted that he could do it upside down. But even after him, I felt confident. Less like a spider and more like a potato bug, I was short-legged and squat, but powerful. I ran 10 miles after work for fun. I hiked and kayaked and ran and cycled, always feeling unstoppable and pushing my spirit to the limit.

The wetlands parallel meandering River Road that slithers, feral, through the trees until meeting the world again at the cross section of an amusement park and pasta sauce factory. Roads like this have secrets: the rusty bed springs, abandoned boxes of bread, and waterlogged tackle boxes of the Anthropocene. Also: the deer carcass hidden in the brush, its body blooming in rot amongst the Skunk Cabbage; the pond concealed by privet that held a lone Trumpeter Swan, like a figurine on a glass table; the parcel of deer who cross the road and hoof it down to the river, where they cross one-by-one, wide-eyed. They wander the wetlands, wet-bellied and hungry. Bald Eagles clutch talons where they are unseen above the bedsheets of the canopy. My slow walk started here, amongst the numerous dens and abodes of the river-loving fauna, their fleet-footed narratives hidden from me.

You did it! I heard Brian say as my hand grabbed the highest hand-hold on the climbing wall. I swiveled to look down at him manning my belay. I wanted to make him proud, so I scaled the wall a second time, my arm muscles quivering and hot. When I finished, a gym employee belayed Brian and it was my turn to be the small, echoing voice at the bottom. As he disrobed from the climbing gear, I casually began climbing the wall just a few feet up for something to do. I let myself drop from a few feet off the wall, landing on my feet, ankles tingling as we walked to the smaller bouldering walls in a different part of the gym.

The duct taped side of my foot glided smoothly against the sole of my shoe. The tape was working. Less friction. Hopefully no hot spot. The sky, dusty with evening clouds, muted the trees, rendering River Road a steely stroll. The river, dark with the narrative of dipping feet and slick-scaled, wide-eyed fish, conversed with rocks and silt. A foreign language I do not know. I am small, I thought to myself, and know nothing. The evening went about its business of darkening and lowering as I slowly ambled onward. The sky’s pallor gave way to no blush or rose. Ahead, an industrial park. Afar, a train released its warning into the air. Thundering through the woods, it would eventually blare its greasy, metal song past my home where my husband would likely watch it through an illuminated window, mostly seeing his own reflection.

Need help up? I barely registered my own boyfriend towering above me. I looked up at his face, simultaneously pulling down the zipper of my shirt to get some air. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand, I shivered up to him, cold with heat and sweat. Sitting on my butt on the padded floor next to the bouldering wall, something was not right. I looked down at my feet and they were foreign, not comprehending the messages my brain had sent them. Move. My feet sat silent. Crooked, even. Before I knew it, Brian gently braced my arm and helped me up. No no no no no no and he lowered me back down to my butt. It’s like there’s a looseness in my right foot and a crunchiness in my left, I said, as I realized that my right foot pointed at 3 o’clock, loose and languageless. Did you fall? Brian asked, sounding incredibly far away. My dry mouth, moving slower than my fluttering heart, mumbled yes.

A final, sharp bend on River Road is where relics of the blue-collar worker reside. Walking along the bend, I had almost forgotten about the industrial park worker I made up in my mind. The one who, on his way to work in the pre-dawn morning, threw the refuse of his gas station breakfast out his window. Every couple of days, an empty pack of cigarettes. Maybe it was the only control he had over his day. Maybe he had been wronged and this was his consequence-less way of doing wrong. Sometimes my imagination concocts a carpool; two apathetic men about to start their long day. They’re not the kind to care about the skunk cabbage or rotting deer. Apathy, though, is a boring narrative that I rarely entertain.

There are ten bones in the body that you do not want to break, my surgeon said straight after meeting me for the first time. And you broke one of them. I watched him read my chart as I sat in the hospital bed. His face, thin and soft, looked like the face of a thoughtful, sensitive father. I thought I detected pity in his eyes. He explained the severity of my injuries. He told me that I had fractured the fibula and tibia in my left ankle. Crunchiness. He told me that I had dislocated my right foot and fractured its talus bone, the foundation of the ankle. Looseness. He briefly told me the plan of action. Surgery tomorrow—if there was enough time, both procedures would be completed. Brian stood by my side, both of us confident and in good spirits considering the circumstances. The surgeon smiled at me only with his mouth and then it faded. You will likely never walk on uneven terrain again.

Home, where my husband pats the top of our dog’s head as he goes about his evening, was three miles away by road. One-and-a-half miles away by wing. I entered the wetlands as darkness ascended. A grassy path, gray in nightness, led me past the cartoony quacks of a mallard and the buzzing nightsong of the woodcock. Spring peepers peeped intermittently and the darkness did what darkness does—it made me float. The ground disappeared into night and my feet did their work of wayfeeling and waymaking. My eyes adjusted enough to determine tree limb from sky. Proprioception and slowness, my mother-tongues, led me through the wet-world of mud and snag. River in the right ear. Frog chorus in the left. Every time my hand reached out to touch, something touched back.

What did I tell you? You should have gone to the zoo! My father thought I was adorable, both feet huge with bandages. He took a picture of me in my hospital bed. I had my wheelchair lesson and was deemed ready for discharge. It was three days later, Valentine’s Day. The night of my injury, after I gave him permission to break up with me, he told me he’d be moving in with me to take care of me. The next morning, he called me, tearful, from my parents house, asking me where they kept their towels. He didn’t want them to see him crying. He drove my car back home, over two hours away. Mom and dad would take me home with them for the time being. I lived briefly on their couch, watching TV. I flinched when watching hockey players maneuver their ankles on the ice. I watched Planet Earth, the mountain goats jumping from cliff to cliff, my feet buzzing with anxiety. Refusing to use the bedside commode, I army crawled up their steps and lifted myself onto the toilet, sweaty and victorious.

River Road, dipped in night’s ink, was a vein. A white, narrow path down its middle. I walked along the painted lines, my ears alert for the sound of cars. My hand, armed with a bright flashlight, had a finger poised on its button. A neon specter, I donned reflective gear and smiled down at my feet that did not hurt. I engaged the flashlight and stepped off the road when the few cars did approach. I quickly blew out like a candle when they passed me. A deer I did not see huffed at me, only several feet away. I huffed back and listened to the many bodies disperse around me. An illuminated tree perplexed me. It stood in a pocket of darkness, yet it stood bright as if light shone from below it. I looked far into the woods and saw the only source of light and its straight path to the tree. I pitied the tree and the area of wetlands that would never experience true darkness. The trumpeter swan, when it sat upon the pond, was always encased in light.

This is the worst foot I have ever worked on in my career. My third attempt at physical therapy yielded no results. Up and walking unassisted three months ahead of schedule, my foot, years later, still had little range of motion. At that point, I had hiked up many mountains, participated in trail races, and continued my active lifestyle, albeit slow and less intense. Every evening as I sat on the couch, Brian twisted and bent my foot as I instructed. The scars on my feet and ankles resembled slow, deliberate caterpillars. Feathers, said others, the people who regularly witness my slow limp. My crooked gait. My daily, chronic pain.

How was your long walk? Brian greeted me at the door as I arrived home from the darkness. I had told him days ago that I was going to walk as much as I can in the month of March. Brian, who always drops what he is doing to greet me, hugged me in the threshold of our home. In return, I never let go until he lowers his hands down my back and moves away. We embraced as the dogs danced around us, everything bright and made of us.