I broke my foot on August 16, 2004. Hurricane Charley came over the day before but Monday morning was bright and sunny. The road was wet and I wondered if I should ride my scooter, but I set out anyway. Half a block from home the machine went sideways and I went down. There was no cause, no reason that I recall. My helmet was scratched a bit and my head had bounced. My right foot was screaming in pain trapped helplessly under the side of the scooter. I pulled it out. Was this wise?

I don't know. I sat by the Scooter, which lay sprawled in the road. A car stopped. A nice black lady. "I'm fine," I said, she looked dubious and drove on. Another car stopped. I was still fine. The scooter had only a small smudge where it had crushed my foot. I could not have laid there doing nothing, waiting for an ambulance, lying in the road. I needed to solve my own problems.

After 5-10 minutes I got up and drove the scooter home. I was wearing old running shoes, simple racing shoes. The right shoe was destroyed by its scrape along the ground. I threw it away. I pulled my big toe into place and heard a crunch. I put on new shoes and somehow drove to work. I went to the doctor in an hour.

For the past month I have relied on the kindness of family and friends to take me places, to get me things and to fight depression. I wake in the night dreading the need to crutch into the restroom and lay for an hour waiting to be ready to get up. And yet I know that I am still blessed, still better off than almost all, still basically happy. And ultimately able to take care of myself.

Today is September 21. My foot is still not my foot, but the swelling is going down and it is vaguely foot shaped. I am in awe or the simple beauty of my uninjured foot.

Peaches was our cat, she died last year. She lived with Margery when we left Illinois. My foot is in an air cast now, following a couple of weeks in a regular cast. It had been a bad week for my foot. It hurt and didn't seen to be getting better. I was out of patience.

I dreamt last night that Peaches was eating my foot. She used to sleep on my feet and jump on then in the night and I would have to push her off.

I couldn't wake up to push her off lost night. I was too tired, I couldn't move. I was parallized. I lay in a hot sweat, shaking and screaming at myself to wake up and pull my foot free. Peaches was a lion, lolly gagging on my foot. I could not pull from the lions mouth. I wanted to jerk free just as a month ago lying on the road I had jerked it from under the scooter.

Finally, I pulled with all my might and woke up pulling my knee to my chest. It was 2:00 am. I was in North Carolina. Peaches was not there. My foot was healed.