A Body in Motion

Newton's First Law of Motion is, in laywoman's terms, a body at rest stays at rest and a body in motion stays, well, in motion.

When I was a kid, I nerded out to nature shows.  My sister and I would lie on our bellies, heads perched in our hands, and watch Mutual Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  I loved those animals.  They were quirky and communal and beautiful.

The one animal I did not like was the sloth.  To look at them scared me, actually.  Still does, a bit.  Their triangle-shaped, flat heads and beaky noses seemed unnatural to me.  And forget about the claws.  I could not even handle thinking about those strange hoof-like grippers that kept sloths in the canopies of the forests.  So disgusting.  Recently, I learned that sloths move so slowly that moss grows on their backs.  Can you imagine?  Wearing a blanket of moss.  See, I told you they were disgusting.

Perhaps my distaste for the sloth explains my distaste for a sloth-like life.  The life that is so easily fallen in to.  The life that so many of us live.

Sometimes, I give myself sloth-days. The ones where the couch wins out over the gym and the TV wins out over the book (Let's face it, the TV usually wins out over everything, including conversation with loved ones.  I digress.); days where I let some elves in some magic factory far away make my dinner, put it in the box for me, and tell me how to heat it up. In the microwave, of course.  Dinner in three-and-a-half minutes.  Ding.

The problem with these days is that they are contagious.  Rarely does a day of sloth remain just a day; instead, the day slowly reaches with its claws, crawling from one day in the canopy of laziness (isn't that called a hammock?) to the next, creeping so slowly that they, or rather we, gather slime along the way.

Funny how the flesh, which takes months to mold into something resembling a sense of muscularity, spreads into Jell-O so quickly.  In a matter of days, really.  As if that's the state it really wants to be in.  The state of cushion-hood.  I suppose some of us could fool ourselves into thinking that, in our days of inertia, we are proving physics.  After all, once at rest it is so easy to stay at rest.

People often ask me how I am so strong given the disability that I have.  My answer always is: A body in motion stays in motion.  I have always been active.  As a teen, I walked the family dog.  In my twenties, I joined the gym and joined the treadmill race, walking not running, of course (These were fanatical days.  Ones to which I wish never to return.).  In my thirties, I discovered Pilates.  Nowadays, I do "Lite" versions of aerobics classes at a gym.  Exercise has not only kept my body stronger than it should be but it's also kept the moss off my back.

And wasn't Newton talking about more than just physics?  Can't we make this a fill-in-the-blank?  A _______ at rest stays at rest; and A ______ in motion stays in motion.  A mind.  A passion. A love affair.

What would you fill in that blank?  What in your life is at rest that really needs to be in motion?  How about your back?  Exempting the occasional back hair, is it filled with moss?  Is it time to scrape it off and set those claws on the ground?

These Slow and Steady Changes

Everyone knows that change can happen in the tiniest split-hair of a second.  Life can fracture that fast.

My house overlooks a major thoroughfare; the constant rumble of traffic has melted into semi-white noise over the two years I've lived here.  On fairly regular occasion, the red scream of a siren rips that white noise apart, reminding me that there are people hurting.  Loved ones are in fear.

My classroom, too, sits on a road that houses a hospital on its opposite end.  I often tell my students to send the person in the ambulance a positive thought or two.  These are the reminders of how quickly all can change.

Life itself, too, sometimes becomes white noise.  We rumble along on its (fingers crossed) lengthy thoroughfare, zombie-ing ourselves from one commitment to another, waiting for some sort of siren-- hopefully (fingers crossed) positive--to rip the monotony apart.  Perhaps this is American discontent.  The rat-on-the-wheel-running-toward-something-bigger-and-(fingers crossed)-better-phenomenon.  Only, we find that the wheel doesn't stop until we decide to stop chasing the bigger and better and be (fingers crossed) content with what we have.

These siren-ous moments are not the ones I set out to write about today.  In actuality, today I was struck about the subtle changes in life.  The ones that creep rather than pierce.

We've all been there.  The pounds that slowly layer themselves on so painstakingly slowly that we just can't understand how we've gained twenty pounds; for men (and some women) the few hairs that fall out every day, seemingly no big deal until suddenly the hairline looks more like it's low tide than high;  the resentment that drips poison into our thoughts about our partners and loved ones, a build up of arsenic that mummifies these relationships and numbs us to the stalemate at which we've arrived.

For me, these slow and steady changes center most around what I used to be able to do and no longer can.  When I was little, I used to be able to climb a jungle gym.  Even make it to the top.  Today, I would not even make it up the bottom rung.  I used to be able to climb every curb, even the Mt. Everests of curbs.  Today, for most curbs, I need to lean on the hood of a car (sorry for the fingerprints) or grab the nearest pole to help hoist me up.  I used to be able to climb steep hills, slowly but surely reaching the top.  Today, I would need something to lean on, an arm or a railing or some day (maybe) a cane.  I used to be able to sit on the floor and get up with relative ease.  Today, I need a couch or a chair to put the top half of my body in while I inch my legs into standing position, looking like a knock-kneed, newborn giraffe.

I don't remember the gap years.  How I got from there to here.

I think these slow and steady changes are God's way of ripping off the band-aid slowly.  So it doesn't hurt as much.  So that by the time we arrive on this side of the gap, we don't feel like something has been stolen from us.  We, in fact, don't really miss what we once had.

In light of all of the abilities I've lost, it's a damn good thing there are so many things I do so much better than ever I did before--like accepting and forgiving and hoping and understanding and loving.

(Who cares about climbing an ol' jungle gym anyway?)

Drama

I'm not really one to pull out my soap box and preach from it--my students may beg to differ--but sometimes I find myself in the mood to battle.

I have a bone to pick with Hollywood.  Well, a couple actually.  The first contention, of course, is their representation of "normal."  Normal to Hollywood means to be Stunning.  How do we average humans (hey, even those who are above average) watch these giant visions of perfection on the screen and not judge ourselves against them?

In the movies, the hero and heroine are, inevitably, beautiful.  I spent minutes wracking my brain to think of an ugly protagonist and all I came up with was Gerard Depardieu...and that was in the 90s!  I couldn't even come up with a not-so-attractive woman who played a protagonist role (if you can think of one, please post a comment).  No, according to Hollywood, ugly equals evil and beauty equals good.

As I am working towards vulnerability (watch this TED talk--it's part of what inspired me to start this blog), I am coming to understand that these "perfect" beings are not my ultimate goal.  After all, in real life, many of these people are suffering.

This unfair, unreachable expectation of beauty is not actually my biggest gripe.  My biggest beef, if you will.  What offends me most about Hollywood is that people keep winning awards for playing physically and mentally disabled people, but no disabled person actually plays himself. They, the actors, are getting all of the credit without any of the struggle.

Oh, sure, they will tell you that they spent five days walking through life blindfolded so that they could see what it was like to be blind, or that they rolled around in a wheelchair for a few weeks so that they could feel what it really feels like to be paralyzed.  I have news for you, Hollywood, you got to take that blindfold off and stand up from that chair.  Not so for those of us who really do live with a struggle every, single day.

And you are winning awards for playing us.

Awards!

Sometimes, the cynic in me pays attention to ethnicity in commercials.  I'm always impressed when a company is "brave" enough to feature an interracial couple.  Those edge-walking daredevils like JC Penny.  I think it's their way of looking cool so that we who have written them off as old-people clothiers, might pause and say to ourselves, Hey, JC Penny, land of the grandmothers, has become progressive.

Although many companies have gone interracial, few have gone disabled.  It's as if having their clothes featured on a person cruising in a wheelchair or walking with crutches or limping along somehow makes the clothes contagious.  As if the people who bought those clothes would somehow catch the ailment.  Some modern-day small pox virus.

Some of you are thinking--but what about Glee, Heather?  They have a kid in a wheelchair in their show.  In real life, Kevin McHale walks.  And can we talk about how he's type-casted in the show?  A geek.  A semi-misfit who sometimes gets the babe.

I act every single day of my life.  My captive audience is a group of forty-two seniors.  They are mine for 90 minutes a day.  On most days, I put on a show.  I gear up for the over-enthusiasm needed these days and dog-and-pony my way through my time with them, just to eke out a morsel of their motivation.  Sometimes I am good.  Damn good.

Because of this, I've thought about taking acting classes.  I think I have some raw talent.  But what stops me are these: the stairs to get on stage--how would I climb those without being overly conspicuous? It wouldn't look like the actors do when they fly up them, two at a time; the chairs--what if the ones on stage were too low and I'd have to hoist myself out of them? The camera and the audience won't like that awkward pause of a moment; the movements--what if my character had to jump or run or throw herself at someone?  My body won't do that.

I do not blame myself for these insecurities.  I blame Hollywood.  After all, I've never seen anyone like me on the screen.  Never.  How am I supposed to believe that it could be me and that I, too, am normal?  In all my disabled perfection.

Huh.  There is a spell to be broken here.  Some new normal to be set. I think it's time to enroll myself in Acting 101.  Anyone care to join?

Separate but Equal

For years, I have been at war with my body.  I have starved it, gorged it, made it work harder than it was meant to, allowed it weeks of sloth--all the while trying to beat it into submission, as if it were an It, totally separate from the Me.

When I was around seven, my parents went out for a date one weekend, leaving my sister and me with a babysitter.  In addition to baking cookies and watching a scary movie, weighing my sister and I was part of her idea of fun.  I remember what I weighed: 55 pounds.  

55!  

My babysitter said to me: "For your age, that's kind of heavy."

And so began my distrust of my body.  Of course, I had other reasons to distrust it--its inability to run or jump or climb the jungle gym, to name a few--but nothing bothered me at that time more than the weight.  The weight equaled ugliness.  And ugliness equaled unpopularity.  And unpopularity equaled a hopeless, desperate life...in my seven-year-old mind, at least.  

Now, as an adult who spends the majority of her waking hours with teenagers and has had plenty of years to reflect back, I know that popularity does not equal happiness.  And unpopularity does not mean a lack of friends.  And that none of this has to do with weight.

But, back then, unpopularity was catastrophic. As was being heavier.

Of course, little did I know at seven that I would be an early bloomer, and Puberty would greet me two years later at the age of nine, puffing me up with a pubescent layering of fat and size C boobs.  Yes, at nine.

I really was a misfit.  And, although some of you might be thinking that I must have been popular with the boys, I ask you: what does a nine-year-old boy know about boobs?

I remember the first time I ate only an apple for lunch during 7th grade. What power I felt over the self-control and how I loved the attention when people asked me if that was all I were eating.  What a strong person I was.  How they must have envied me...or so I thought.

Thus began the swinging pendulum of my life, knocking over the tiny posts of weight loss and weight gain.  All the while, my mind mistrusting my body but my never really understanding this or even stopping to think about it.

I know I'm not alone here.  In this place of distrust.  In this place of Me vs. It.

I know that, particularly as women, we judge ourselves on our bodies.  Our bodies determine how valuable, powerful, desirable we are. And we compare ourselves to other women...leading to us probably checking out more women than we do men--in order to size each other up, as if happiness were in direct correlation to size.  And we think that the thinnest girls' lives must be the most perfect.  

And,  although I have MD, I have spent years exercising beyond what is necessary, somehow hoping that if I punished my body enough, it would change.  It would heal.  That if only I chiseled at it hard enough, it would be like everyone else's--the normal people.

A few months ago, the same mentor who asked me if I really wanted love also said to me: "Your body is your teacher."

As she said those words, I began to cry.  I had been gypped.  I wanted a different teacher.  A yoga master, perhaps.  A marathon runner.  A tall, waify giraffe-like body.  Not this one.  Not this "damaged," tending-to-be-too-curvy teacher with whom I am constantly at battle.  I couldn't possible learn something from a teacher I didn't even like.  A teacher I didn't, in fact, know very well.

It's been a slow getting-to-know you process.  My body and I certainly haven't rushed into matrimony.  I still resent her some, if I'm being honest.  But I'm learning to trust her a little bit more.  That she has an intuition that is beyond my over-active mind.

I had a raging headache today.  My body's way of saying, Hey.  Hey, you there.  You whose mind thinks it's separate from me.  We need rest today.  I'm hurting.

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't honor her fully today.  I pushed beyond what I probably should have.  But perhaps the small victory here is that I heard her.  And I knew that she was talking to me.

Fun with Letters

So, if we are being totally honest, and I am embracing this authenticity thing, there's something you should know... I have never been in love.   I have never had a man say those three, magic-filled words. You know, I love you.

If the sewn-on scarlet A brought Hester Prynne shame in Nathaniel Hawthorne's day, the letter S is the modern-day version.  After all, if we branded adulterers today, imagine how many people would walk around sporting As across their chests.  Tailors and stencilers would be millionaires.   And I'm not sure adultery is met with shame so much anymore; rather a simple shrug of the shoulders, a casual "I'm not surprised" have become the norm.

But when I tell someone that, at thirty-eight, I am single and have always been single, it's as if people look for the letter L tattooed on my forehead.  Sure, they feign surprise.  But I'm not fooled.  On the inside, not too deeply hidden, as I often see it flit across their faces, they are wondering what is wrong with me.  How could a seemingly "normal" woman have never been in love?  What have I done to scare these men away?

And I know I'm not alone.  I have a small cohort of single girlfriends, all in their mid-to-late thirties.  Most of them, of course, have had relationships in the past but have found themselves single at this strange chapter, when being single comes with a brand of a tiny 'o' for other.  We are the wheels.  The third wheel, the fifth wheel; hell, I've even been a ninth wheel before.  But we have learned to accept this.  To welcome it, even, because, after all, it means we have friends.

We have attended countless bridal showers, bridesmaided our way into bridesmaid heaven, thrown baby showers, and oohed and aahed at countless babies.  And it's not that we don't love these people.  And send them happiness and blessings and love.  It's just that sometimes, just sometimes, we wish it were us.

When I would talk about love with the connecteds, they would say: "It will happen when you least expect it"  or "Love will come when you are ready."  I used to shake my fist at the sky, silently screaming: But I am ready.  Have always been ready.  

Last January, I made an appointment with an amazing mentor of mine.  During our talk, I complained to her about my lack of, and need for, love.  She asked me pointedly: "Are you sure you want it?"

I didn't know how to answer that.  Such a heavy question.  So loaded with years of stories from my married friends about lack of spark and the witnessing of nit-picky fights.   But somewhere, lying deep within the muck of uncertainty, shone a little kernel of hope.  My heart a tiny Pandora's box, hope still nestled inside.  And so I said yes.  Yes, I was sure.

And, boy, did I find it.  Here, my friends, is what I had missed all along.  I had spent so many years seeking outside of myself for love, molding myself into what I thought men wanted me to be.    I never realized that the answer to my quest for love was finding myself.  True love for myself.

This past July, someone finally told me they loved me.

That someone was myself.

And it's amazing how the sting of that tricky letter S, even though I look forward to the day when I can unstitch it from my skin, has been dulled by those three, magic, lonely-killing words.

This I Believe

Recently, I came out of the closet that I had spent years trapped in, trying to hide who I really was--hiding even from myself.  No, I am not a lesbian, although I think life might be a little bit easier if I were.  The box I had closeted myself in was the one that housed my acknowledgement and public-displays of my disability. 

As often as I could, I would avoid situations that might "out" me.  Rather than climb stairs in front of people, I would walk the long way around; instead of choosing a low chair that I might struggle to rise from, I chose a stool whenever possible; although I live close to the beach, I never took anyone up on their invitation to sunbathe, the sand being one of my most powerful nemeses.

I switched jobs last year.  I am a teacher and spent the first twelve years of my career teaching middle schoolers, primarily 7th graders.  Perhaps I judged them unfairly, but I never thought they were quite capable of understanding being...One of the first times I did risk it and share, I was asked if I were contagious.  That shut me up pretty quickly.  

Last year, I moved up in the world and joined the ranks of the hip high school teachers.  The school where I teach honors the quirky, the misfit, the individual. 

They are my people.

I decided to "come out" on the first day of school last year.  Modeling an activity after NPR's This I Believe, I wrote and shared the following with my new students:

     When we were children, my sister and I visited a specialist doctor once a year.  He would have us walk down the hallway of the hospital as he stood watching our gait, furiously scribbling notes, taking notice of any awkward wobbles or outward bending of the ankles.  Inside the exam room, he would ask us to sit in a chair and try to stand up without using our arms to help.  We would try.  And fail.  He would ask us questions about “adjusting” and “school” and “happiness.” 

All this time, my parents hovered over us, my mom trying to act like she wasn’t concerned.  She is a woman who is champion at putting on a brave face.  I knew, though.  I felt her fear, that hope-thieving gypsy.

                At some point in the office visit, he would turn to my sister and me and say, “Well done, girls.  Now, why don’t you two run down to the waiting room and play with some toys.  Your mom and dad and I are just going to chat for a few minutes and then they’ll be right out.”

                Dutifully, Cari and I would entertain ourselves with the dingy-furred, germ-filled stuffed animals. We played in silence. Never talking about what had just happened or the disability we had.

 I didn’t really get it then.  Didn’t really understand why we were there or what it all meant.  All I knew was that I didn’t like the look in that man’s eyes.  The pity lying in there.  That we were somehow doomed to fail. Even at such a young age, it tightened my chest.  Set aflame my desire to rebel against it. And so, at the age of ten, I told my parents that the doctor treated us like some sort of freaks—told them I would not go back to see him. They agreed, without much argument.  I had won.  

That was the beginning of my winning.   You see, my sister and I were born with Muscular Dystrophy, a disability where muscle tissue deteriorates over time.  The odds were stacked against us, my sister and I.  Come to find out that in their private “chats,”  the doctor had warned my mom and dad to be prepared to have two children in wheelchairs by the age of eighteen.  The torture my parents must have put themselves through, worrying about the future of both of their daughters.  The uncertainty of how long their children would physically function despite the brilliance of their brains and spirits. 

It’s lucky for them—and more so for me—that I believe that odds are meant to be defied—especially the ones that are filled with “can’t”s or “shouldn’t”s or “never will”s.  Instead of seeing these as a reason to give up, I see these as an invitation to pick up the sword of one’s spirit and go to battle.  Whatever the odds might be.  However heavily stacked against you.  Even if the issue is something small—passing a test, asking your crush to the movies even when just being around that person sets your tongue to stuttering, standing up for yourself when your feelings have been hurt—these little moments of victory will strengthen your will and enable you to fight the bigger battles that are guaranteed to come, those battles in which someone’s relationship or future or life is on the line.

Isn’t this why, after all, people love to root for the underdog?  Why television stories where some miracle has occurred become the ones we don’t forget?   Where some person or creature has defied all odds to succeed or survive.  Those are the moments that move us.  Those are the stories we remember.  Those are the stories that set us apart and make us human.

Always remember, that those odds stacked against us are just odds.  They are not the decision.  Why not see them as invitations to fight? This, I believe.

I'm happy to report that I got a round of applause each time I shared.  And even more powerful than the accolades from the students--despite how reassuring they were--is the freedom that being my authentic self ushered into my life.  I am no longer imprisoned in my tiny little closet. 

It turns out, Mark Twain was onto something when he said: "When in doubt, tell the truth."  It's not, afterall, about not getting caught in a lie; it's about finding freedom in who you really are.