balance

For the third time in two weeks, I've been asked if I have difficulty with balance. This time it was in relation to my sometimes involvement in gymnastic horseback riding, in which I've been known to stand on a moving horse.

The answer is, yes, of course I have difficulty with balance. Anybody trying to stand atop a trotting horse or climb on fabric hanging from the ceiling or just take a beginning ballet class is going to find themselves challenged by gravity.

Painting by Noam Lazarovitz

 But I am not being asked this question because I partake in certain disciplines that require balance, among which is also cycling with a dog attached to one side of my bike. People are asking because I've got one arm and they are curious if my asymmetry is an issue.

And the answer to that is no, not really.

I'm no PhD, but I've had a lifetime of balance practice. And if anything is true, I've been balancing as long as I can remember. For example, you may easily find me balancing a tray of food or a jug of milk (or a baby) on my raised thigh whilst opening a door.

"I'm going to write about balance," I told my new massage therapist. I was spurred on by what seems to be widespread ignorance of physics and physique.

"Oh, you mean actual balance," he said, "not like internal or spiritual balance."

No, that I have great difficulty with...

Physical balance is way easier. When a medical professional asked me this week about my potential imbalance, she was not talking mental. I sheepishly explained how each person must have their own midline based on individual physique, a sense of balance that develops over time.

She looked at me, nodding, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

But even if you cut someone's arm off, they aren't going to suddenly fall over. Not in my experience, anyway.

I dare say I may have superior balancing ability out of sheer necessity. Can I walk a high wire from one skyscraper to another, probably not. But it's a little offensive to have my balance called into question so frequently. I guess I could throw the question back at people while shoving them to test their balance...

But I suppose the pen is also mightier than the push.

OneArmGirl

down time

If your summer is going anything like mine, you are finding yourself more and more active. Coffee dates, horseback riding, teaching, fundraising--all very enjoyable, splendid things to do, but at the end of nearly every day I find myself sun-weary and muscle sore (including the brain muscle).

When I was a kid, I was terminally afraid I was missing out. If it was at all exciting, I wanted to be a part of it. This pervasive anxiety over not doing enough or not being enough or not being where I needed to do something continued into adulthood.

Then I got sick, so sick all I could do was lounge around my parents' house. I found myself in the middle of the very nightmare that stalked me. But I learned something critical during my convalescence: even when I was doing nothing, I was still doing something. I was still breathing. I was still seeing and feeling. I was resting. 

This shift in my thinking about the intentionality of rest was revolutionary. I learned to value the down time. I was no longer missing out or wasting hours of my life--I was existing at a slower pace.

Days like these, as I find myself busy (now practically a curse word in my vocabulary) again, I long for that blessed rest. So I'm trying to carve out oases of creative relaxation into my routine, to allow myself the freedom to just take the afternoon off, drive to the mountains and watch a hummingbird buzz back and forth from perch to perch.

I can't think of a better use of my time.

OneArmGirl

the bike incident

Not long ago a good friend sent me a video of a double arm amputee successfully changing a flat tire on his bicycle. This week I tried to put a tire just filled with air back on my bicycle and failed. Thankfully no one was taping it, so you won't see it on YouTube anytime soon.

Granted bicycle maintenance is not something I've put a lot of time into, but with my dog looking forlornly up at me after several days of pathetic walks, I trotted down to the basement with great expectation.

I trudged back up with my unwieldy and uni-tired bike. Already exhausted, I assessed the situation before me. Thankfully, I had saved the hardware I'd removed with the second tire, careful to remember the order in which it needed to go back on. This only proved so helpful, however, as I attempted reassembly. I soon discovered that even if I could get the tire nearly into position, it was still impossible to open the breaks wide enough to fit around the tire.

After tinkering with oily parts to no avail, I pondered my predicament for several moments and made a command decision. I would take the bike, tire, and other necessary pieces back to the bike shop where I'd had my tire pumped up and ask them to put the tire on.

So I carried the bike, which seemed to have grown heavier somehow, down the alley to my car parked on the street. But the real challenge turned out to be getting the bike into the backseat of my sedan. Just when I thought I had it most of the way in, the front end would swivel and catch on the door frame. I cursed the handlebars. The break lever hit me on the jaw. I went to the other side of the car and attempted to pull it through. Then back over, nudging and pleading, seriously questioning life decisions that had led to this moment, not having a boyfriend being one of them.

Finally, the bike settled in just far enough for the door to close. Too exhausted and sweaty to drive anywhere by this time, I walked grumpily back to the apartment, seriously considering the possibility that bicycles are secretly trying to ruin our lives. 

That's when I saw my neighbor Dave's wife walk out of the house next door and remembered that Dave is a sometimes serious mountain biker and probably not only could put my tire back on, but probably could have filled it with air in the first place.

I wisely decided to eat lunch and walk the dog before taking the bike back out of the car. 

Yesterday, Dave stopped over and put the tire back on my bike in about two minutes. He also encouraged me to come to him in future before I decide to lose my marbles trucking it to the closest repair shop (well, he might have left out the part about my marbles).

OK, man who changes his tires without arms, you got me. I'm just glad I know how to ask for help.

OneArmGirl

rehab

I wasn't given any physical therapy after I got my cast off in January, so I've instituted my own rehab routine, mostly consisting of aerial dance and horseback riding. 

In five weeks of wearing the cast, my range of motion decreased significantly and my grip was pathetic. I tried to lift myself up onto the lira (hoop), something I'd done easily in November, but was unable to stand the weight of my whole body. My finger felt like it might snap. So, I slowed down a bit.

I've been doing finger stretches, squeezing exercise balls, and completely letting go of spooked horses that take off suddenly across the arena.

I don't think rehab is something anyone enjoys much. A friend who took a nasty fall of her bicycle resulting in a broken femur last year is still waiting for her normal energy level to return; an aerial dance friend just told me she's been grounded for a month because of bruised ribs.

While I was still in the cast, I went to see the movie Unbroken, which tells the survival story of US Olympian and WWII bombardier Louis Zamparini, whose plane was shot down in the ocean, followed by his imprisonment in Japanese prisoner of war camps. 

The movie was good, but at the end I was surprised to learn that it is based on a best-selling book by Laura Hillenbrand. Many may not know that Hillenbrand, who also wrote Seabiscuit, suffers from debilitating chronic fatigue and dizziness, and rarely leaves her home. As an athletic college student, she became ill very suddenly, dropped out and became dependent on care from her boyfriend. She wrote Seabiscuit and Unbroken--both tales of astounding physical achievement against the odds--after she got sick.

I remember reading what is, to my knowledge, the only article she's written about her illness. She became so dizzy while writing Seabiscuit, she would sometimes hold her head up with one hand so that she could continue typing with the other.

All of this came back to me as the movie credits rolled. I can't even manage to post to my blog regularly, I lamented. And this woman writes best-sellers from her bed. Have you ever wished you were housebound so that you might accomplish more? 

I had to ask: Would Hillenbrand have ever written a word if she had never gotten sick to the point of not being able to do much else?

The value of life is often equated with productivity, but certainly not being bed-ridden. It's easy to feel like rehab is working to get back to a place where you once were. But what if it it more like re-shaping into something completely new?

OneArmGirl      

a limping angel

I went to see Cirque du Soleil recently for the first time. I was enchanted by the aerialists to which I aspire, but was most intrigued by one dancer who danced on crutches the entire show.

I found myself wondering if he actually had a physical impairment that required the crutches or if it was just part of the show. His moves were so smooth, his transitions so seamless, he seemed to almost fly around the stage.

But a hunch sent me to Google the next day. His name is Dergin Tokmak. From Germany, Tokmak contracted polio when he was a baby, but dreamed of becoming a dancer--influenced most heavily by breakdancing.

When he learned Cirque du Soleil was actually looking for a dancer on crutches for the 'limping angel' in Varekai, he decided to audition. Now he's touring the world.

I guess it's tempting to be impressed by how much someone with a physical disability has accomplished in the dance world, but I wonder how many show-goers don't even know Tokmak is handicapped.

Rather than dancing in spite of his handicap, his dance seems inspired by it. His uniquely strategic, flowing movement is made possible by the crutches which, like wings, carry him just above the stage. 

The angel's limp has become a dance.

OneArmGirl

free at last

I'm free! As of Monday this week, the cast is off.

You may have noticed I've been a bit absent the last five weeks. Perhaps it was because my one and only hand was in a cast, or maybe I just took the opportunity to sit on my butt all day, catching up on the latest season of Maron. And you'll never know.

Forced vacation

I missed my hand while I was in the cast. I certainly missed not being able to type or bathe myself, but mostly I missed my palm. Yes, I missed my palm. Or more accurately, I missed feeling things with my palm. I missed running my hand down my dog's back and pulling my friends into a hug. Without my palm, I felt cut off from a world of sensations. I was isolated, all because of one pinky finger fracture. 

I was not in the cast long enough to learn how to do everything with my feet, but I certainly developed the dexterity of the three fingers available. I spent a lot of time thinking about people without arms and how much I rely on mine. And I had plenty of time to think while waiting on the toilet for someone to come wipe my butt.

While the permanent loss of another appendage would certainly send me into a spiral of depression, I was vaguely aware that, eventually, I evolve. I would become the no arm girl, I would own it. What other choice would I have? It's a sobering thought, yet amazing to realize the human body's capacity for adaptation. And even more amazing, the adaptation of the mind, always the slower, harder member.

But instead, I'm enjoying my freedom. I love washing my own face--I have never felt so happy to bathe myself. I'm walking my dog again. And driving is the greatest gift I've ever been given. I am master of my domain once again.

Still, if you ever have the opportunity to break something, or get sick, or somehow end up temporarily laid up, I highly recommend it. You will find yourself astonishingly grateful for your health.

OneArmGirl

short-handed

I suppose it was bound to happen. I was tempting fate. Living on borrowed time...

At the beginning of this week, I fractured the bone and dislocated the knuckle of my right hand pinky finger. Doesn't sound major but when your right and only hand gets put into a cast, you've got a bit of a dilemma.

I was out at the barn working with one of our new horses, when he spooked and ripped a lead line through my fingers, leaving my littlest fifth finger pointing at an angle that it was not meant to do naturally.

The doctor at urgent care realigned, to put it nicely, my finger and braced it. On Wednesday the orthopedist fixed it up with a beautiful purple cast and sent me home with some wishful thinking instructions like don't use your hand. He had no idea what he was asking.

And so I find myself sitting on my best friends couch, unable to accomplish even the most menial task like drinking my morning coffee without assistance. I've never broken anything before much less the one and only good hand I have. No offense to poor Finneas who is now pulling more than his share of weight.

We are making history here at OneArmGirl.

But sometimes your life takes a drastic turn and you must seize the opportunity to learn to do as much as you can with your feet. That must be a famous quote somewhere.

The thoughtful reader may ask how it is that I am even writing this post right now when typing is clearly out of the question, aside from hunting and pecking with one of the two fingers that are still usable.

Voice-activated dictation is a beautiful thing.

So I continue to write and e-mail, though driving and bathing myself are out of the question. Any horse activities and aeriel shenanigans are also on hold.

On the bright side, I now have plenty of time to binge watch Scandal on NetfliX and catch up on serious news stories like "The Top 10 People Who Didn't Make a Difference in 2014" from The Onion.

My New Year's resolution is to increase my rate of bone growth.

OneArmGirl