Shrinking

Remember growing pains? I was 7 or 8, lying in bed at night, crying and calling for my mother, and telling her that my legs hurt.

“Growing pains,” she’d say, smiling at the milestone. “You’re growing.”

Do shrinking pains exist?

At the kitchen table this morning, on my second cup of coffee, impatient for an elusive caffeine buzz, I feel tiny throbs and zings up and down my spine, across my shoulders, my legs. My left hip quit on me a week ago and is screaming to be replaced. The dull ache in my low back tells me its time is borrowed. And my shoulders and upper arms, my essential swimmer’s toolkit, are still crying from yesterday’s modest workout.

I pour a third cup of coffee. Get kinetic. Mask the pain.

Then I stand up.

Slowly.

One foot inches out, then the other. Step, step, step. My back, stiffened by pain, straightens. Up the stairs, engaging each hip flexor to lift each knee, step by step. Holding onto the bannister, hoisting myself, learning hard on my supporting arm. I can do it. I am puppeteer and marionette.

Putting on sneakers, a feat when the hips don’t want to crease. The dog can’t wait to get outside. It’s Christmas Day, but it’s sunny and warm. Global Warming: My arthritis thanks you.

Down the street, dodging puddles and mud slicks, into the woods. My steps are short, tentative. The dog gulps in sweet chilly air and licks traces of other animal scents from the wet grass. He wants to run but manages restraint.

My hip smarts with each step, trying to hold me back. But I breathe into the pain, visualize the sweet winter air enveloping the angry joint, cajoling it, relaxing it. Heel, toe, heel, toe. Trying to not bite my lip when the nerves in my hip and leg scream out. Heel toe heel toe. Release your shoulders from your earlobes. Breathe.

I can only walk for 30 minutes, I allow myself. But the sky is brilliant and cloudless for the first time in days and there is no wind, finally. I loosen the top of my winter jacket to let the air in. We pick up our pace. My strides extend. The hip gives.

Deep in the woods, walking at a good clip, and letting the dog chase a deer, just for fun. My body is warm, the shirt close to my skin, damp with sweat. My legs are working, stretching in front of me as they always have. My muscles are limber. The heat builds inside my coat. I stuff a glove in each pocket and begin to loop home. I’ve been walking for more than an hour and feel tempted to break into a trot alongside the pup, who’s  eager to run. But common sense returns: It’s been a good walk. Why ruin it by tripping over a rock or stray tree root?

Back home, I’m elated, my muscles, liquid. But it’s fleeting. In an hour I am stiff and hurting. My body cries, but what am I to do? Stay in one place and sink into the earth?