Salve

Now I would have thought that the English word “salve” was tied directly back to Latin but it appears to have had a few stops along the way. etymonline.com gives the origin as “medicinal ointment or adhesive preparation for external use on wounds and sores,” from the Old English sealf “healing ointment,” from West Germanic *salbo- “oily substance”. So if this usage of the word was Latin at some point, it took the long way to get to our current understanding of the word. The site goes on to say that salve in “the figurative sense of “something to soothe” wounded pride, etc. is from 1736; earlier figurative use was as “a spiritual or religious remedy”.

It is apparently only slightly related to the greeting you hear in the Italian/Austrian areas around here where people say “Servus / Salve” This apparently is a historically a clipped Latin phrase, from something like servus (humillimus) (tuus) “your (most humble) servant.” and the “salve” is closer to the meaning of “slave” here.

I am your slave. I am your remedy.

After my partner fell last week in a climbing accident and came away with a few scratches instead of being dead, I’ve been a bit off kilter. I forgot my backpack on the train. I lost my watch. I left my groceries in the work fridge after work on Friday. I can’t find my favorite scarf. I was irritable and tired and couldn’t find space in my head to be present in the moment. In addition to my personal stuff, there’s a war in the middle east and AI is getting closer to something that is going to restructure a good part of the world as we know it.

And one more thing throwing me for a loop is that a woman I went to university with died suddenly, the news coming from her daughter on a social network. She was fifty nine. I contacted my friend’s husband, her best friend, but they’re all just shocked because it was so sudden. We weren’t close friends, but one of her daughters had come to stay with me once. The whole world seems overwhelming and I wasn’t up to the task of facing all that with equanimity last week.

So last weekend, I went looking for salves. One that worked was going to a bird sanctuary. We got there late to hear or see anything particularly wonderful, but just the fact of taking time to listen to birds, spending a few minutes to watch grebes and mergansers fish for breakfast was helpful. There were nuthatches and wrens and black caps and song thrushes. There were fallen logs and mosses and dead leaves. Sitting for a while in one spot, the frogs began to croak. I felt something like happiness trying to burst through.

The other salve was hanging out with my partner, my alive and scratched but not dead partner. He lives in a different area so when he arrived on Friday, I got to see the progression of the scrapes and bruises, see how stiff his neck was. I was able to hug and touch and caress him (always mindful of where the bruises were.)

The final salve was, oddly enough, climbing again. We went both Saturday and Sunday, both times really easy climbs just to get our confidence back. The first one, well, my brain’s been a bit fried and I made it to the start and realized I’d forgotten my climbing shoes in the car. I had to go back and get them, about a twenty minute walk each way. There was a couple just starting the same route when I realized I didn’t have my shoes and it was fortuitous. They were very, very slow and by the time I got my shoes and we were climbing, we ended up finishing just after them. They were beginners, and it was nice not to pressure them from behind, and not to be held up by them for the flow that we needed to find again. They were very sweet.

Sunday we visited that bird sanctuary and did some single pitch climbing after. Had dinner in one of our favorite towns. All was good.

I’m feeling better, finally. I hope this week goes better than the last one, mentally. I have a lot to do, but I just need to be present and find space to be calm. I need the salve of Foro.