mess

I'm overdue on the hand update. I've been working, therapy-ing, and digging out of the piles of chaos the accident left. Lots was left undone. My studio was abandoned and turned into a dumping ground of half finished projects. Last week there was no change in my finger and the beginning of talk of another surgery. We doubled efforts to get it moving.

Meanwhile the few social gatherings I go to continue to inevitably turn up someone else with a recent hand injury. It's apparently a common body part to hurt, only now people tell me about theirs because mine is so obvious. They are always as excited as me to find another bum hand, trade medical details and gross out uninitiated bystanders. The cult of the broken paw is elite and merciless.

Last night at a Tony Baloney's open studio I met a guy whose pinky knuckle got shattered by his steering wheel in a minor car accident. A surgery, metal plate, scar tissue removal and 2 years later it works but he says it's now arthritic. I fret upon hearing this.

And I found another broken hand blogger, musician Robert Rich, who spent a year working diligently to heal tendons and break scar tissue. He writes philosophically about the strangeness of clipping the nail of a finger you can't feel, and the mystery of clumsy scar tissue that hurts rather then helps in its over eagerness to heal. He's remarkably candid and without self-pity for someone who chances to loose his flute and piano playing ability. And he manages to make beautiful music anyway.