Hi Darling Ones,

One of the best things about being 6’5″ is the ability to reach almost all of the things.

I’ve been more than six-feet tall for 41 years, and I have go-go-gadget rams. My wingspan is impressive and so I’ve reached all the high shelves for most of of my life.

Every Thanksgiving I would spend many minutes at the grocery store getting stuffing stuff down for old ladies and short women. This happened for years.

Occasionally, at Target, a shorter-than-me man would ask me to get him something from a tall shelf.

In fact, the only thing I couldn’t reach was the tops of my kitchen walls. My kitchen has been semi-painted since 2007. I’ve never been a fan of standing on things and using my hands to do stuff — painting, turning on the smoke eater machine at the bowling alley, changing lightbulbs. Since I’m so tall this was rarely a problem. Standing on stuff to reach things were for shrimpy people.

Being so tall meant I had a lot practical storage. I was a big fan of using the highest shelves of the cabinets and even the top of the cabinets themselves.

Then the stupid stroke robbed me of my balance. Now that I conduct most of my life seated, the tippy top shelf in the cabinets has become my nemesis.

My inability to easily reach things infuriates me, even more than the hard-to-open & close cheese packaging.

I’ve had more one meltdown over opening cheese. I’ve raged at my mom and my sisters for putting something on top of the metal rack in my kitchen.

God, fucking damnit, I’d think to myself.Don’t they know how hard it is to reach that now?

Of course they don’t. Because for most of their lives too I’ve reached all things.

Even seated I’m taller than a lot of people. When I got my mammogram a few weeks ago (cancer free, fyi) I was taller sitting in the wheelchair than the technician.

This inability to reach things is infuriating because, technically, I can still reach the high shelves. However, doing so is terrifying. Getting a pasta bowl down shouldn’t feel like an adrenaline-fueled, death-defying act, but it does.

Getting the bowl down now requires a short pep-talk, a reminder that I’m probably not going to plummet to my death no matter what my body feels.

The dissonance between what my brain knows (not plummeting) and the signals my body sends (I’m falling) is the most frustrating stroke effect. It’s the part that’s the hardest to explain, and the part I’m convinced if I explain correctly the doctors will be able to fix. So far I have not found the words.

Anyway, I made spaghetti last night. I got the pasta bowl down and I did not die. I didn’t even stumble, but my body still panicked. I tried the protein+ Barilla pasta and it wasn’t too shabby at all. But the real winner of the evening was the three-day rise focaccia I made. It was divine.

How are you, Darling Ones?

Love,
Jodi