The first event was at the Washburn Public Library, just north of Bismack, North Dakota. Librarian Kandi Shape set up everything very nicely, including ordering Subway Sandwiches for the crowd to enjoy after I spoke. Tammy Kruger, Librarian at the Center for the Book ND State Library, joined us bringing some Great Reads bookmarks along with her.

The people who came were all members of a library book club and had read The Clean Daughter. It was fun to hear their questions!

A few weeks later, the day before my next library event, we had whiteout blizzard conditions with thirty-mile-an-hour winds. I was so glad the weather cleared up and the driving was good by the next day.

The building reminded me of the Valley City Carnegie Library I went to as a child. The Mayville Library, however, wasn’t built by Carnegie, but by a pair of brothers who farmed in the area.

The very enthusiastic Lexi Whitehorn welcomed me and gave me a tour of the town’s gorgeous 1900s library. What an adventure just to see the building. All full of nooks, stacks of old books dating back to the 1800s, original card catalogues, and a basement that used to be a gymnasium and is now used for city events. Lovely!!

Later in the evening Lexi drew the door prize. Her faces just made the evening all the more fun! The winner received a box of stroopwafels and a small Delft Blue ornamental shoe.

Both of the Libraries I’ve visited so far were inviting and warm, with good questions and North Dakota Nice people sharing their thoughts and big hearts with me and with one another.

Two library stops down, three more to go.

I’ve been focusing on quietness, mindfulness, brain exercises, and giving my brain some extra healing time. And just when I thought I’d seen it all, just when I thought things were pretty much what they were going to be — three years and eleven months after my brain injury — my brain decided to surprise me. Just like that!

I woke up one morning and the oddest thing happened. As I was taking a shower, I noticed how silky and wet my hair felt. The shampoo bubbled between my fingers. I felt the soles of my feet on the soft rippled bathmat.

I got dressed and went upstairs. My socks itched. My shoes were snug. I was aware of my palms and fingertips, the soles and arches of my feet, my heels. My hands and feet sending their own signals of texture, temperature, placement, and pressure.

I hadn’t realized that all those things had been missing from my life!

Not until they returned.

It was astonishing how much information suddenly flooded my brain. How smooth my shirt felt. How rough the carpet under my feet. I kept coming back to my hair. Running my fingers through it over and over, like a child with a new toy. I couldn’t believe how soft it was, how silky, how thick.

I tried to make sense of what was happening, overwhelmed with loads of new information. My jeans were tight. My socks nubby. The wind blew and I felt it on the backs of my hands. The satin feel of a book jacket in hand. The plastic feel of a pen between my fingers. The multitude of textures from every item my hands or feet touched.

What was really odd to me, was that before this happened, I couldn’t have told you those things had been lost from my perceptions. I didn’t know they had been missing until they returned.

The word oblivious means lacking remembrance or memory of. I lacked a remembrance of what it felt like to live in my pre-injury brain and body.

I’d forgotten.

I have an acquaintance who had a brain injury and for five years lived with being constantly dizzy. She woke up one morning and wasn’t dizzy anymore. Five years! The dizziness never came back. It was truly gone.

Every brain injury is different.

Mine seems to have particularly affected the way my brain perceives my body in space. It causes problems with vertigo and balance. I’m hoping that this new awareness/connection might help with that. Maybe, since my feet are sending more signals, my brain will start to better understand where they are located!

I dream of the day that I will wake up and won’t feel dizzy, won’t feel like my head is a balloon floating somewhere, tethered by a string to my shoulders. Dream of the day my head will settle down onto my shoulders and stay put.

Sometimes, I feel akin to the Harry Potter character Nearly Headless Nick. My head is there somewhere. But I don’t quite know where.

It’s really bizarre to live in a body that feels this fragmented, floaty, and dis-united. But it’s also pretty darn cool and very exciting to have some new, tangible evidence of neuroplasticity at work.

Way to go brain! Way to go!

And, oh, by the way, keep at it please!

May your hands be warm and your bookshelf full!

Thank you for reading along!

Love always,

Jill