You people have to be tired of hearing about the pain, the pain, but I’m fascinated by it. I had no idea that there are so many varieties to be had. Really, the only way to deal with it is to sort of lie back and watch it play as color and music on a screen built of your body and mind.

I’ve noticed that for me, pain correlates with colors and vapor states. The original, first pain was primal and hysterical, a deep swirling cloud filled with occasional gusts and lightning bolts. After the reducing, there was a chaotic pain, much more frightening. It was like a rain symphony, swelling throughout the day and reaching its crescendo at nightfall, just before my surgery. It was a deep blue pain. The pain since then has been more ordered, a consistent still lake with occasional eddies and tides. Some sting-y creatures live in it and occasionally come out. This pain is still blue, but more of a greenish blue than the others. Everything is more; a drop of water on my big toe is a wave, a brush against a jacket hem a slap.

I find that sound affects it as well. Especially rattley, crinkley sounds. The first night home, Jeff wadded up a plastic sack, and the pain crinkled with the plastic. Last night, he opened our vertical window blinds, which always sway and clack when they’re moved. Every clack was a quick stab. Better to observe than be upset, because noises are a fact of life. I fired up iTunes this morning to fill the silence, but Tom Verlaine’s Warm and Cool set everything a-jangle. Perhaps silence is better, so I can float along on the tides and just watch.