Knees together when sitting too; no gaps. Knees together when getting into and out of a car. Oh, but it was hard, because with a car the leg and foot had to be lifted first, first one then the other, just a little ways off the ground, but that little way was challenging, to bring knees together, turn. Keep the knees as close together when putting on trousers too, from a seated position, with the trouser legs gathered up like tights so the foot can be wiggled, toes, then heel, through the hole. The same with socks and shoes, seated, knees together, and bending over them. The difficulty, as with getting into and out of a car, is how to lift the leg and get the foot into the sock, into the shoe. The answer: the leg has to be helped with hands – yours or the loan of another's.
And obviously knees together when preparing to get into and then into a kneeling position, before going onto all fours or into a slightly modified Child's Pose: sat back on heels, chest lowered, arms stretched out or down by sides, palms up. Ah, relief, some. But how to get out and get back up? Knees together? Well, yes, but still how? Will my pelvis allow the toes of my feet to take my weight? Yes, it will. Sit back, lift and pull yourself up at the same time. Each side equally in use, no dominance here. This is exhausting...
And yet sleep is had, if it's had at all at the end of an interminable and exhausting day, in fits and starts in-between repositioning of the body and the pillow. Pillow, eh? Yes, but not the one beneath the head (and it is just the one) but the one that is essential to sleep on your side with it between your thighs. It cushions the pressure that otherwise would have been applied had you remained on your side without it, and I personally have no chance of sleep in any other position even in more mobile times. Generally I start out as a starfish (in yoga I believe it might be termed Corpse Pose, which is somehow though more appropriate much less dignifying) – it helps the body to relax – and then turn onto my side – one or the other, and curl into what is known by the professional and non-professional circle as the foetal position, but knees together (with pillow) needs to be established straight away so as to lose as little sleep, and to cause the least discomfort moving again so soon after getting into bed, as possible. But always, of course, even throughout the turnings of the night, alert to pain.
Pain is a funny thing, as those of us with a clumsy or accidental nature or of a certain age, will have by now come to acknowledge. When it's there, as I've aforementioned, you're alert to it and the danger of causing it, but once gone it's hard to recapture, by mind alone, exactly how it was or how you bore it. And it changes too, with the occurrence (or recurrence) and over the course of your complaint. What worked one day to mitigate it may not be so successful the next, and the pain, particularly if it's relative to bearing weight, your own, might have moved, and so a new remedy to it which allows for some mobility, if not flexibility, may have to again be found. What's also peculiar to it, as I was to discover with knees together, is that I was although alert dumb: I failed to take much else in, around and in front of me.
All routine had broken down. There were limits now. Had I been a drinker, I might have thought like J. 'a little whisky with a slice of lemon would do it good', or perk me up at any rate, but no, it had to be knees together and (mostly) stoicism.
Picture credit: Kneeling Nude, c.1888, Edgar Degas (source: WikiArt).
Written June 2020.
