Oddly enough, my physical therapist thinks that this goat farmer needs to learn how to glide with her walker in the house. Now really, I’m walking weird enough with this partial knee replacement, and having to figure out how to even use a walker. The therapist now wants to see me glide with it, too.

Personally, I think a good solid stomping with the walker is more of a sensible look, being a very sensible goat farmer, but no, the therapist wants me to glide lightly with that walker, to look like I‘m floating along with that sturdy walker. I have never glided at any time in life. Except, possibly when I tripped over that sleeping goat and fell over the hill. For a moment there I felt like I was gliding until I hit ground.

Anyway, now I am to work on gliding, looking graceful, light hearted, as if I really don’t need a walker. Telling me how to do it, the physical therapist walked behind me and I diligently pushed that walker and pretended I was light as a feather and that my knee really wasn’t swollen twice its normal size and very unwilling to bend and hurt like the dickens.

And, as I tried to do my idea of a glide, he walked behind me with a webbed belt around my waist. His hand grasped the belt just in case I decided to trip and glide suddenly to the ground. He could then snatch me back from crashing. Also for encouragement, as I stomped/glided, he shouted like a drill sergeant, “Glide! Glide! Glide! Heel toe! Heel toe! Glide! Glide! Heel toe!”

So, not only was I to remember to glide like a butterfly with that walker, which fortunately had wheels on the front, but I had to do it a specific way of heel toe. I did the best I could, I thought, but when he said, “This is a farm. You wouldn’t happen to have a cattle prod around, would you?”

I took the hint and speeded up my gliding and tried to remember to be as light as a butterfly that was walking heel toe, and I really put that walker into high gear. Nothing like hearing inspiring words to make you want to improve even more.

Now, as I understand it, if I get to gliding real good, the next step would be learning to use a cane. No, I wouldn’t be allowed to go down the hill and visit the goats then, but I’d be on a cane with more freedom to move around in the house.

That I looked forward to because I discovered with a walker that our house is full of furniture sitting in the oddest places. Absolutely no room to get through with a walker, or if I can get through, I have to walk sideways like a crab to get from one place to another. Gliding became a challenge in these situations.

Now, if you think about it, gliding would be impossible outside with all the grass and rocks and gravel and general farm landscape. I’d have to go to my all terrain walker without the little wheels on the front. So far, I haven’t been allowed outside to try my all terrain walker, but just in case, I try to plan ways of escape in case I absolutely feel the need to get out. But, since I am easily bowled over, I have not been given permission to try out my plans on how to get outside and what to do once I was out. Well, one can still dream.

So, when the therapist is not here, I glide/stomp to all the windows, sometimes creeping sideways to get past my odd ideas of furniture placement, which I never thought was odd before until the knee surgery, and check out the different herds of goats with my binoculars.

Lee still regularly puts different herds of goats in the front or backyard so I can look them over from the window. I’ll holler to the girls, “Hey, girls, I’m gliding, sort of, now! I’ve made sure I’ve hid the cattle prod from the therapist. It won’t be long until I’m out there with you. Another month or two they say! And, as long as you all don’t stampede over me, or I don’t trip, or you don’t bump into me, or jump up on me, I should be fine!”

Basically, they just look up at me standing at the window, and say, “Whose the lady without the grain bucket?” Well, I guess we all can’t be sentimental. The girls are realist. What good is a gliding woman without a grain bucket?