A Limp of Truth

Tonight,
You limped ahead of me.
You sensed
My exposed nerves;
Straight to my core you cut.
In your limp,
You spoke a truth of me.
The truth you speak
Is
One from which
I may not walk away.
                               August 1993
     Truth survives the test of time.  Though 18 years ago, the place, and the image are indelibly etched in my memory.
     Sharing this story--walking in an elevated walkway past a mirror--serves as a reminder of lessons that I am called to learn.  I am not alone.
     Each of us is given lessons in our life--each day--to learn.  The question? Am I--are you--willing students of our life lessons given each day?

I Sit Before My Vanity

I sit before my vanity,
Dressed in pride.
In my mourning,
I must ask,
"What face will I put on to the world?
How do I face myself?"
A heartfelt smile of optimism and hope,
Foolish or not,
I am pale without it.
Braced,
I walk straight with few trips on my journey.
                                                             2005
Wearing my first brace since childhood was one of a series of health challenges that called into question how I meet my compromised body.  Questions continue.  The source will change, as will I.  Yet, the questions will continue.  Will I be open to the questions?  Will we?

If I Could Change One Thing...

     "Why didn't you tell me that Rosa has cerebral palsy?"
I sat down beside her and take a deep breath. "I was going to."
     "But why didn't you?"
      I don't really know where to begin on this.  It's been a feeling more than a rational thing, but it's true.  I haven't wanted to mention it.
      I shake my head.  "Rosa and I write notes in class."
     "So?"
     "So...I didn't talk to her at all before I lost my leg.  I ignored her.  But now..."  I lift my backpack and zip open the smallest pouch.  "Sometimes she writes things."  I pull out my growing collection of her notes.  They're little scraps, half sheets, strips.  It's a mess, really. It looks like a small pile of garbage.
     "You keep them?" she asks.
     "I don't really know how to explain it."  I sift through the notes.  "She has a way of..."  
     I look up at Mom.  "It's like she opens my eyes."
     Mom considers this a moment.  "Can you give me an example?"
     I'm sifting through the notes again.  "Here," I say, pulling one out.  "She asked me, if you could change one thing, what would it be?"  I look up from the note.  "Not a wish; it had to be something real."
     "And what did you say?"
     "That I could run again.  But, when I asked her the same thing, she said"--I turn to the note--"That people would see me, not my condition."
                             The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

    No.  Jessica and Rosa have are missing the point.  Rosa gives the easy answer--the answer you would expect.
      If asked, "Patty, if you could change one thing what would it be?"  I would offer a slightly different answer.  For a lifetime, I have tried to offer my answer, yet, my words have not conveyed my convictions.
     If I could change one thing, it would be that people would see themselves in me, and not my condition as an entity separate from them.  I give a form to facing human vulnerabilities.  I mean no threat.  My vulnerabilities are visible.  Others may not be visible.  Yet, they are equally worthy of being surmounted.
     If I could change one thing, it would be that each of us would see ourselves in one another, and seek for ourselves, and others the best that we may be.  May we be courageous enough to face our vulnerabilities--our shared humanity.

Hope...Fragile Hope...

What's wrong? she writes in a note.
The running leg's a pipe dream.
She slips the note back.
So was walking....
Don't look so far ahead....
Looking ahead is what's been giving me hope.  I've wanted to believe we'll be able to gather twenty thousand dollars.  I've wanted to believe that I'll run again.
But hope now feels so fragile.  Too fragile to touch.
                 The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, p. 203.

     My aspiration is not running.  It never was.  I am not a 50-year-old trying to run back to a past job.  A younger body perhaps--a body that propelled me out of my cocoon.  I have been told that expecting to have my wheelchair in my home within a week is realistic.  Odd.  Three months ago, I wanted no part of such a future.
     Yet, I listen to my body.  My ankle is inflamed with deafening screams, "Do something NOW.  I can't carry you.  You are breaking me." 
     I look at my body--my stomach is bigger than it should be.  I know why.  I know what I need--laps in a pool, a buoyed spirit.  Yet, my body cries out.  She demands my attention.
     "Listen.  Rest.  Do not break me."
      Looking ahead.  Hoping.  Yet, what is it that I am running to do.  Swimming.  Yes.  What else?
     But hope now feels so fragile.  Too fragile to touch.

Lead Me...Guide Us...

My call is stronger than my wishes.

My wishes if I could live.

Yet, the call I hear is....Live fully.

Rigid though my brace is,

She is my ticket

To enter the stage--to play my part in the play--to live fully.

Or, so I thought.

I do not know the distance I must walk--the distance I must roll

To play my part in this drama.

Yet, I hear my call, muffled though it seems at times, 

"Live fully."

I must answer.

I pray, My Director,

"What is my call?"

Lead me, guide me,

To my mark on the stage.

I live fully.

That is my call.

Yet, this is no performance.

This is no act.

I strive to live fully.

My Director--my Guide,

I pray.

"Lead me--guide us--to live fully."

Gratitude's Simplicity

     "I am grateful."
      One day each year, we proclaim thanksgiving.  Yet, most days we say nothing more than, "Thanks," or, if we want to formalize our gratitude we say, "Thank you."  Enthusiasm's formality in English is, "Thank you very much."
     Gratitude.
     Too often, gratitude seems too grandiose for our energy's investment.
     Gratitude.
     Sometimes, gratitude is more than a common noun--it is a powerful threat.
      "You should be grateful.  Some people are less fortunate than you.  You have so much more.  You should be grateful."
      A grateful threat denigrates you--it denigrates the recipient of your gratitude.  
     Norwegians--my ancestors--have a marvelous expression of gratitude.  I pray translation does not dilute its beauty.
     My favorite??? Mange tusen takk.  "Many thousand thanks."
     What exponential power must beauty prove to warrant,
      "Many thousand thanks."
      May we appreciate beauty's exponent each day,
       "Mange tusen takk."

Do People Think I am Special Needs Now?

    "Will you be sitting with Rosa?"
     For a moment my mind's a blank.  Then I realize she means the special needs girl who sits at the back of the classroom.
     The girl in the motorized wheelchair.
     The girl who rarely talks and, when she does, is very hard to understand.
     I didn't even know her name was Rosa.
     "There's plenty of room at that table," Ms. Rucker says without looking over her shoulder.
     Inside, I panic.
     Yes, I'm missing a leg, but the rest of me is...well, it's normal.
     Do people think I'm special-needs now?
     Is that how they see me?
     No!  They can't!
     But...but if I start sitting with special-needs kids, that is what people will think.
     It just is.
     Ms. Rucker turns and gives me a cool, blank look.
     She wants an answer.
     My mind is a flurry of contradictions.  I want to lie and say I'm nearsighted.  That  I need to be up front in my own chair.  That I hope just fine.
     But I also think about my terror in returning to school.  Feeling like a freak.
     Is that how Rosa feels?
                         The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
     I have not lost my leg in a car accident, as did Jessica in The Running Dream.  No, my cerebral palsy, and my aging body leave me at a crossroads.  Jessica, a teenager, met her new body.  She did not like what she saw.  She wanted to run from her wheelchair.
     A childhood friend recommended The Running Dream to me.  Only recently have we re-established contact.
     Jessica brought to mind two individuals, at two very different points in my life.  Laura Johnson.  Jean Wassenaar.
     Laura Johnson was a junior high school classmate.  I was affected mildly by my cerebral palsy.  I walked with a slight limp, and my right hand was bent at my wrist.  Some, not all, of my peers made fun of me for my physical appearance.  I yearned to be seen as normal.   Laura was part of the SLBP [Slow-Learning Behavior Problem Program.]  She was very friendly--overly so for my normal-seeking teenage being.  I wanted nothing to do with Laura.
     Ironically, for as much as I yearned for a distinct identity from Laura, my salvation--advanced-level classes--was my nemesis in my search for peer acceptance.  Being placed in advanced classes earned me the moniker, brain.  
     Jean Wassenaar.  I am haunted by how I treated Jean.  She was a colleague I knew for five to ten years.  Only in her obituary did I learn that Jean was a polio survivor, who learned to walk again at the age of 13.  By the time I met Jean, she used a cane to walk.  During the last two to three years that I knew her, Jean used a scooter.  She was a very outgoing person, who had a wonderful laugh.  We had a good working relationship. Yet, I remember once, if not more than times, when we were headed downstairs.  She needed to use the elevator.  I could not deal with her use of a scooter.  So, I opted to take the stairs, and meet her downstairs.  She never confronted me about it.  In fact, when I left work due to my failing body, she extended herself to me in a note saying that if she could help in any way to let her know.  She was beaten to death by her husband--an act rooted in mental illness.
    With Laura Johnson, I well may not have been buddy-buddy with her.  We had different interests.  It is not that I should have sought out her friendship just because she was labeled SLBP.  To have done so would have been just as bad as shunning her on the basis of what she represented to me.
    With Jean Wassenaar, I believe we may have had a deeper relationship had I been more accepting of the device she used to live fully.

Words of War....The Silence of Peace

     The implementation of the Libyan no-fly zone--Operation Odyssey Dawn--amplifies the words we use to dictate how we conduct human affairs.
     I must confess.  Two statements uttered during each Catholic Mass move me.
     Peace be with you.  May the peace of Christ be with you.
     Words of war.  Perplexing phrases.
     What is the end game? 
     We can win this war.
     We cannot lose the war.
      The U.N. seeks a coalition of willing partners to implement the no-fly zone against Libya.  Diplomatic affairs are crafted by the Department of State, the United Nations, primarily in the United States.  We have progressed from the United States Department of War. From 1798 through 1947, the United States governed its foreign affairs through a Department of State.

      Movements to establish a Department of Peace in the United States has never gotten any traction.  A Department of Peace has never been taken seriously.
     Is it too little, too late?  
     This question is being asked regarding the implementation of military actions in Libya.
     I pose a different question.
     Peace.  Is it ever too little, too late?

Don't Walk TOO Fast

Don't walk too fast.
I don't run.
I can't run.
Don't walk too fast.
The light is green.
The sign says, "Walk."
Don't walk too fast.
The light is with me.
You are not.
Don't walk too fast.
I amble from strain--from pain.
I tiptoe toward not hurting.
Don't walk too fast.
Don't zoom past me on your motorcycle.
Don't rush to judgment.
Don't walk too fast.
                              Real life cannot be scripted.
                              All I may do is to reflect upon it.
                             Based on an intersection with a motorcyclist
                             crossing University Avenue in St. Paul.

Choices

Each morning, and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants,
OR
I may awaken and fall asleep, fearful that I will seize.

Each morning and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants,
OR
I may deny a part of my self--a well of perspective on and insight into the world in which I live.

Each morning and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants,
OR
I may not learn the full meaning of faithfulness, and vigilance.

Each morning and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants
OR
I may not learn how to pray--how to live prayerfully.

Each morning and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants
OR
I may rebel against the logical admonition, "Did you take your medication?"

Each morning and each night, I may take my anticonvulsants,
AND
I may redefine a positive rebellion--freedom--from my seizures.

Brazen Honesty

     "Well, that wasn't very graceful!"
Her brazen honesty was breathtaking.
Eyewitness to a twirling around 180 from a seated position,
Eyewitness to my need for an outstretched hand to stand,
From where I was sitting, she was not lying.
     Yet...yet...
Her brazen honesty left me a speechless moment.
     "Well, Grace never was my middle name."
Speechless, I wanted to say so much more.
Her stinging blow to my heart expelled my word.
     "Well, that wasn't very graceful."
I am charged to be the sower of understanding.
I cannot leave seeds of understanding go unplanted.
This barren field may not go fallow.
     I must plant Seeds of Understanding.