still feeling fallen

Across from where I sit all day a pair of jackdaws have made their nest in the broken guttering of a tenement. They pair for life. I watch them leave and come back; leave and come back.
chuck, chuck  they go.
Movement is a wonder to me right now. I am open mouthed at flight. I watch people walk, skip, slouch or run up and down the hill outside and am fascinated how they get their legs to sustain such a thing.
chuck, chuck
I have been putting more and more weight onto my bad leg. The physio wants me to do this. In my kitchen she had me discard the crutches and take the weight through my arms on the worktop.
"Okay now bring your weight to the bad leg."
I did.
"Now lift your other foot off the floor."
I sent the signal to my right foot to lift. Nothing. I stared harder at my foot as if I could do some kind of Jedi mind trick to move it. Nothing was happening.
"I am trying," I said laughing with a bit of a brass neck.
I shifted my weight again and nothing happened. I was sending the signal.. chuck, chuck .. Why wasn't it responding?
Eventually, taking a lot of weight through my arms, I managed the impossible task of lifting my right foot a fraction of an inch off the floor. Surely NASA don't have as much difficulty getting rockets off the ground?

So, once it was accomplished, my brain and legs got the gist and I was able to practise moving it very slightly while taking the weight through my bad leg. Such toaty wee steps. Inching around the kitchen.

I sit then at the window and watch the jackdaws and gulls and goldfinches and tits flutter and flap and glide down from on high with the ease of a dolphin. Watch people at their ambulations, unconcerned at the miracle of their walking. Someone once said that learning to walk upright is to master the art of catching yourself from falling over and over again. I still feel fallen the now, but am picking myself up inch by inch getting braver, becoming willing to tumble myself forwards enough to catch my fall.
chuck, chuck