The BEST Clam Chowder

This cold Saturday morning I'm still sitting in my jammies, drinking burnt coffee that Carl brewed two hours before I awoke. I'm drinking water from a dirty glass because we forgot to run the dishwasher before bed last night. Some things never change. While the sun shines on me through grungy windows and between the branches of my still-standing Christmas tree, I'm trying to make friends with my blog again. I'm not sure how. Do I try to fill in the blanks between my last post (May 18 of last year!)? Do I upload a bunch of photos? Do I publish a well-written post, or just post something?

I'll ramble on and see what develops...

While some things haven't changed, others have, like my new hip. Wait, "changed" is inadequate. Let's try: Transformed. Revolutionized. Those are much better.

For example, the other day I decided to make a double batch of clam chowder only to realize Hannah had peeled the last of my potatoes down to brown blobs and left them to soften on the kitchen chair. Prior to May 18, this lack of potatoes would have resulted in a series of questions: Did I have enough energy to bundle up, ride my power chair to the garage and drive to the store? Once there, would my hip allow me to hobble to the back, heft a bag of potatoes into a cart and push it the checkout? After returning home I could use my power chair to return to the kitchen with the bag of potatoes, but would I have any energy remaining to actually prepare the chowder? I could walk only with the aid of a cane, so every movement through the kitchen would have to be done one-handed or with the assistance of my children, effectively doubling the time required to complete tasks with two hands. The fatigue caused by arthritis was (and still is) a constant, unwelcome companion who not only followed me around, but often demanded a piggy-back ride. The hip pain added to that fatigue had caused every-day decisions to become monumental.

Like I said, that was pre-May 18. I was making clam chowder post-May 18. I walked (without a cane, I might add) to the garage and got in the car. Once I arrived at the store, I hurried (yes, hurried) to the back and grabbed a 10-pound bag of potatoes. Up to this point, my mind had remained in the kitchen, ordering the next steps required to get supper to the table on time, knowing it could be done, but only if done efficiently. However, the substance of the full ten pounds, once in my arms, pulled my mind back from the kitchen to the grocery store. I didn't have a cart. I hadn't thought about grabbing the largest bag of potatoes, I had just done it. My mind wasn't worrying about whether or not I could complete the chowder, it was planning the steps to do it, steps that would not be slowed by a cane.

I wish I could describe, without sounding sappy, the joy and gratitude that filled me.

It's one thing to experience joy and gratitude when given something, a real something, like a child. The wonder and awe are overwhelming; you don't even know you have the capacity for the emotions that come with something so new and beautiful.

Having something equally real, like your health, then having it taken away slowly, incrementally and constantly causes a never ending cycle through the grief process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. After twenty-plus years with arthritis, I had absorbed this cycle into my life so fully that I thought it was "normal."

Suddenly, with one move, my "normal" had changed. Having so much grief removed instantaneously (well, almost instantaneously--there was a recovery process) left a vacuum that could only be filled with an enormous gratitude and joy. Something I had lost so long ago that I had forgotten it like you slowly forget the facial features of a lost loved one had been returned to me. It was a gift I didn't even know I could be given, and I had received it.

The clam chowder I made that evening was the best batch of clam chowder ever. I made it with two hands and with energy left to spare since it hadn't all been given to pain.

And I made it with gratitude, which adds flavor to everything.