Well, it’s been an interesting month. In 1966 Robert F. Kennedy gave a speech in which he cited a Chinese curse: “May he live in interesting times.” (Having studied Chinese in college for two years I can say with confidence this isn’t an actual saying in China…but hey, it’s a good phrase.)
I’ve learned a number of things at this point. The first thing I learned is that healing is a thing. Healing is a thing. Meaning there was definitely a part of me that felt like I wasn’t doing anything when I was laying around in bed- that felt like I was being lazy. But the reality is when our bodies suffer physical and emotional trauma, an enormous number of complicated processes begin to happen. These reactions take time and they require a great deal of energy. I decided to travel to Duke to teach the second week in January. Wow. By Tuesday, I was like, can I go home now? I was just exhausted and realized while it was possible for me to travel- it wasn’t fun and it was taking away from my healing.
I also learned what every pregnant woman ever knows- people are really, really weird and have zero filters. There seems to be a collective assumption (that I would love for Congress to address) that if someone can visually detect something that seems different about a person that it’s fair game to ask about it. One guy at the hotel I stay at in Durham- the doors were closing as he was heading up and I was left waiting. And in the 1.5 seconds he saw me, rather than hold the elevator says, “You had a little bump, didn’t you?” Yes, I thought to myself, and the Titanic encountered a tiny challenge. (Ok, hey- maybe I shouldn’t compare myself to the Titanic. Fine. It’s just what leapt into my head…)
The best experience I had was Pedro, an Uber driver who exuded peace and chill. He didn’t ask me what happened when I collapsed into his vehicle. He just asked me how my morning was going. I actually wound up sharing with him a little bit, and in turn, he told me about a long hospitalization he had once. He told me he did a lot of writing- writing that he still has. “Oh,” I assumed, “like journalizing? Like reflecting on your life?” And then being absurdly optimistic, “Like…poetry?” “Nah, man,” he said. “Recipes.” Laughing, I was like, “Whuh?” “Yeah, man. Recipes and menus. I’m not a chef or anything. But I was hungry in that hospital. And my mind turned to food. I still have some of those…” Pedro probably made my whole month- maybe my whole year. When you see someone with an injury or something that seems different…you really don’t have to ask. Like, really…don’t. Be like Pedro.
That brings me to another touchy subject- the subject of help. Hey. I get that when someone is having a hard time we want to help. I get it. I do. I have felt that same urge. But it’s tricky. If the golden rule is do unto others the silver rule is never do anything for someone they can do themselves. When we violate the silver rule we aren’t helping- we’re creating dependency in the service of making ourselves feel a little bit better. And then sometimes we confuse the act of offering help with actual help. Like, on the Duke campus tiny southern women would approach me and say, “Oh, you poor thang, what can I do to help?” And I would stare at them and finally say, “Um, thank you, uh…you tell me. What can you do to help?” Given piggy back was clearly out of the question, I was honestly curious what they could offer. And of course they didn’t actually want to do anything…they just wanted to make the offer. After 4 or 5 times I saw a pattern. After 9 or 10 times it got pretty old. Having an open conversation saying things like, “So…do you have a sense of how I could be helpful,” seem right to me. My personal rule: trust me to ask for help and please, PLEASE, for the love of all that is good, stop asking me if you can help every three minutes. If I want to struggle with something, it’s because I’m wanting to stretch myself. When I really need and want help, believe me- I will ask for it.
There’s much more to write about this, but for now I’ll leave you with a poem called “An Arm and a Leg” exploring some of this:
An Arm and A Leg
I paid an arm and a leg
to realize, again, that life
isn’t actually up to me.
Like, I knew this, but now
my radial break and tibial
plateau ache hiss, “Get
used to this.” And they take me
down a peg or two at least.
I paid an arm and a leg
to learn that laying in bed
and playing dead to the world
isn’t the same as doing nothing.
That in the quiet darkness
beneath my skin macrophages
releasing cytokines work constantly
to fill in these broken bones.
I paid and arm and a leg
to discover that when I drag
myself through the Denver
airport I become a public spectacle
susceptible to becoming the receptacle
for every idle curiosity, disappointed,
skeptical, when I tell them that no- this didn’t happen
flying down one of their storied slopes.
I paid an arm and a leg
to realize that while I’m left-handed
I shave with my right, that it’s hard for me to sleep
with a foot raised at night and that every single day
I take a million tiny happenings for granted:
that my heart beats and I am breathing,
that my heart beats and I am breathing,
that my heart beats and I am breathing.
I paid an arm and a leg
to have to beg you to stop telling
me what to feel, for while I know it’s really hard
to see me this way I will decide whether to be grateful
today or to agree to see the divine hand
you feel planned for that tree when God
was apparently too busy to rouse my neighbor
who died in his sleep the same week.
I paid an arm and a leg
to hobble upon a finality
to my young fantasy of immortality
taking up my bruised place
among the brawnily vulnerable
fiercely fragile, perfectly flawed
and temporarily able-bodied members
of our ancient, fully human race.