She said I’m not exactly where I need to be in the recovery from my recent fall.

I know I’m not exactly where I need to be; I need to be on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean soaking up some sunshine. But I figured what the heck; she’s only my physical therapist. She hasn’t actually experienced my frustration of trying to get these nearly 88-year-old muscles to respond to the bending exercises. What could she possibly know about how bad the pain is from the scar tissue? No way could she know these tissues just grab and tighten-up every time the barometric pressure drops.

If spring would just stay here longer than one day, I just know I could be at the ‘place I need to be’ in my recovery. These weeks of sunshine one day and hail the next day have taken their toll on my recovery efforts as well as my state of mind.

Maybe my muscles are experiencing spring fever. I know there’s a lot of that going around lately. The birds have it; the bees have it; and certainly, the yellow jackets have it. They make bomb-diving efforts to swarm inside every time I open the French doors to my kitchen. I’ve watched as several tried to make a nest under the eave of the roof on one of our birdhouses. With the flying insects, rabbits and robins, signs of spring abound in the Rockies.

Springtime in the Rockies reminds me of the author, Vance Havner, who wrote about springtime in the Carolinas: “Politics and ladies hats may change, but one can always count on springtime in the Carolinas.”

The same goes for the Rockies. I don’t know about ladies hats. Not many ladies wear hats that often anymore, except perhaps the ones who are members of the Red Hat Society. Back in the 1940’s my mother used to wear a hat everywhere she went. And gloves. She always had matching hat and gloves to wear, especially to church on Sundays. She attached them to her purse with one of those alligator clips.

I loved going to church with my mom. Her church friends were so neat. One lady, named Virginia Price, was a beautiful woman, tall with flaming red hair that she always wore in a bun.

She also wore the most beautiful rhinestone jewelry I had ever seen. And she never seemed to wear the same piece twice. One Sunday she and my mother were talking in the aisle after church and I kept eyeing the pretty rhinestone pin she had on her dress. After they finished the conversation I turned to Mrs. Price and said, “That is the most beautiful pin I’ve ever seen.” And without missing a beat I continued, “Can I have it when you die?” My mother gave me one of those looks that made me think I was the one who was about to die.

I survived my mother’s wrath, so I’m betting I’ll survive the physical therapy exercises and eventually be where I need to be in the recovery process. Spring in the Caribbean has a nice ring to it.

Email Betty Heath at begeheath690@aol.com.