Geoffrey Gatza’s recovery update, and upcoming readings

It feels remarkable to be able to say this now, six months after my fall and the rupture of my quadricep: I am walking again with confidence. Healing from this kind of injury is a strange education in patience. I have learned that recovery does not happen in dramatic movie moments. It arrives quietly. One day you realize you stood up without thinking about it. Another day you notice you crossed a parking lot at a normal pace. Then suddenly you find yourself carrying books again, walking into a reading, standing for longer stretches, feeling almost like yourself.

Almost.

I am not entirely my old walking self yet. There is still stiffness, caution, and the occasional reminder from my leg that healing continues beneath the surface. My gait still carries traces of the injury, especially when I am tired. But the difference between now and those first frightening weeks is enormous. I can move through the world again. I can trust my body more than I could a month ago, and far more than I could three months ago.

That trust returning has meant everything.

During the recovery I spent a great deal of time thinking about motion, fragility, and how quickly ordinary life can disappear. Walking is something we rarely consider until it is taken away. The body has its own poetry: tendons pulling like lines of verse, muscles learning rhythm again, balance becoming a kind of stanza rebuilt day by day. Recovery has felt less like returning to an old self and more like revising a manuscript after catastrophe, keeping what still works, strengthening weak places, and discovering new forms of endurance.

Now, thankfully, life is widening again.

I am excited to have two upcoming readings in the weeks ahead, both with open reader slots afterward:

Tuesday, May 20 7PM
Screening Room Hon. Shirley Chisholm/Audubon Library
Doors open at 6:30pm. There will be a sign-up sheet for open mic readers.

Wednesday, June 3 at 7:30 PM
Center for Inquiry Western New York | Amherst NY
There will be a sign-up sheet for open mic readers.

It feels especially meaningful to return to public readings after these past months. Poetry readings are always gatherings of voices, but after a long recovery they also become celebrations of presence itself, the simple joy of being able to stand in a room, read poems aloud, listen to others, and participate again in the ongoing conversation that poetry creates.