The small things

I wrote in my morning pages today and had this insight: it’s the little things. I went for my mammogram and bone density scan yesterday. Mammo clear but I had more bone loss. It's clearly my fault. The tech could barely hide her disgust when she read the answers to the questionnaire about my bone care habits. They are dismal. I don't take calcium supplements. I do eat cheese, but rarely do I drink milk. I don't take Vitamin D. She even asked incredulously, no multi-vitamin? No. I said. I felt her disgust as I lay on the table and the scanning thing chunked, chunked over me. I don’t take calcium. It’s almost this willful thing. I was writing about that this morning and then scooted right along to the issue of my mother and my mental wrestle with that ever-present guilty, unresolved issue of where she should be. I haven’t talked to her really since Sunday. I just talked w/ her briefly Tuesday. It’s Friday. So, I’m writing and I realize that to build my bones I have to take 3 calcium tablets a day. Stay in the sun 20 minutes. Walk 30 minutes and jump on my pogo stick. That’s really it. Some small things. As for my mother, I probably don’t have to move to North Manchester. Quit my job. Or sell my house here and buy a larger one (although apparently now’s the time to at least buy if you have money) and move her out here and hire caregivers and a therapist for myself. I probably just need to call her every day and send a card once or twice a week. That’s what I need to do. The small steps not the grand gesture. And I thought that’s not my style, small steps. And how much I miss not having the discipline and persistence to do the small steps because accummulated, they do change things. They rebuild bones. They comfort a mother.