"You've been listening to it do alarming things for two months. That's different," he said. "Now listen to it do ordinary things, normal bodies do like getting tired easily and learning when to stop and rest. It's a different skill."
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I started the walks that afternoon.
Just around the neighborhood, the streets I'd grown up in. My mother offered to come. I said thank you and went alone, which she received with the expression of someone choosing not to push and understanding the choosing to be alone.
The first walk lasted fourteen minutes.
That was not nothing. That was a fact I had to remind myself of when fourteen minutes felt like a lot less than it should be for a person who had once run to school because she was late and because running had been easy.
Day two: seventeen minut
