Minor hiccough announcement. We are interrupting our usual service to tell you I’ve broken my toe and squished my metatarsal. Everything was going so well, wasn’t it?
Fortunately it’s my right little piggy. I’ve broken it before so that in itself was familiar territory. It was the fact that I couldn’t put my foot down easily which was a bit of a bummer. On a plus side I have crutches and a wheelchair. The doctor was well impressed with my level of kit.
Fortunately like many breaks this will hit the three day rule. Hurt like hell for a bit and then gradually get betterer and betterer. It could have been worse.
I suspect a solistrist (reads feet) would have a field day. If my memory serves me, little toes are related to stubbornness. I find this impossible to believe, naturally. A broken toe is a message in a bruised bundle.
Speaking as a deeply non-obstinate individual I have to employ all my empathetic skills to imagine what this physical sign might point to. Could it be it’s actually pointing to my husband’s inability to comply with my recommendations, sorry, directives? I wonder.
Very, very occasionally I can be slightly determined particularly in my expectations of myself. Obviously it couldn’t be about that. I’m sure there’s nothing in this.
So I am off work over the weekend, but with an intimate relationship with the throbbing lump (don’t go there!) where my little toe used to be.
In an attempt to make friends; draw us onto the same side of recovery, I have spoken to my little toe in the most affirming tones. I’d clear my throat at this point if it didn’t cause my digit to complain. I share with you my celebratory ode of love:
This Little Piggy
Oh little toe, my love for you remains untamed,
Until you hurt, so rarely was your greatness claimed.
The smallest, pudgiest, little piggy in the sty,
Together we will heal your wound and fly.
For pork in the treetops is a dream we both embrace,
A world where anythingly everythingest stretches through time and space.
We thank you.
Jane Wallman-Girdlestone 
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