Unfortunately.....

I have to break my promise.  I can't do what I said I was going to do.  My goals must be reset.  I'm having a hard time with it all.

7 weeks ago, playing basketball with Mr. 11, I was coerced onto the basketball court.  It's hard to stay on the sidelines when the world's most adorable middle schooler is importuning from the free throw line.  Please..... Please.... Oh, PLEASE..... I couldn't resist him.

Passing was fine, but then he wanted me to teach him to take a charge.  This involved swinging my butt into his belly.... and swinging my lower half is not something I've done a lot of in the past 5 years.  Needless to say, I swung, he took the charge and slid across the court, and my knee, swollen and achy, reminded me every day following that my bball days are long gone.

I've rested.  I've iced. I've compressed. I've elevated.   I took a week off from everything.  I've been very very very careful in the gym and at Pilates and in life.  I'm better, but it still tingles.  It swells up (in various places) after I use it... and I use it all the time.  

I spoke to the nurse (after PT's and other pros have examined and flexed and manipulated me) and she says that I am healing as I should, that I should continue doing what I'm doing, and that eventually, over time, if I'm smart,  I should be fine. 

 Her final words?  Just don't do anything extreme.

We agreed that climbing (or preparing to climb) the Sears Tower is extreme.  She told me I was crazy to do it.

Since I have no interest in giving back any of the gains I've made on my perforated (right) side, since favoring my newly damaged left knee has put torque on places that were previously un-torqued before (creating new and interesting gait patterns), since my knee talks to me in unpleasant tones every time I take a step, and since the nurse told me that I was crazy (which we all knew, anyway)..... I can't do the climb.......

..... this year.

I am beyond bummed.  I am embarrassed.  I don't want anyone to think I am wimping out... but I am. In the past, I've taken advice from professionals with a grain of salt; I try to find congruence between what I am told and what I feel and what My Body tells me.  My Body... capitalized because that's the important lesson here.  My Body has a mind of its own.  I may need a new defining moment, but my need doesn't necessarily translate into My Body's compliance.  It's on its own trajectory.  I may be able to push and prod around the margins, but it will heal when it heals, the nerves will connect when they connect, the swelling will go down.... eventually.... if I take good care of my self and don't do anything extreme.

My Body and I are going to have some long conversations over the next few months.  I'll do my part, with the ice and all the rest, I'll continue to strengthen the areas around the injuries so that the damaged pieces aren't over-taxed, but I'm going to expect a similar effort from My Body.

I'm going to take an epsom salt bath and begin the conversation.  

2017's SkyRise is only 14 months away.

My Body, My Self

That title resonates with women of my generation. Everyone knew someone who had one and was willing to share.

The book introduced us to ourselves, with mirrors and contortions and sympathy and understanding.

This was before full frontal nudity was a cable tv standard.  This was when I Am Curious Yellow's foreign film cachet combined with a flaccid phallus drew college students to campus movie theaters, only to leave long hours later, wondering why they'd spent the time.

I was thinking about all this as I waited to ask my massage therapist a question.  "Where exactly does my psoas connect to the front of my hip?" I want to place my rubber therapy ball correctly when I'm doing my homework, and I couldn't be sure I was there.

There is up close and personal to parts you don't normally touch in public.  There is why I switched to a female therapist.  There is where she was moving my fingers so I could be sure I was feeling the right spot.  There is what we were examining in the hallway outside the dressing rooms, off the main studio floor but still visible to anyone using the space.

I wasn't bothered.

I can't imagine G'ma in a similar situation, although I can't imagine G'ma in tights and a tank top, either.  I can imagine what she's thinking right now: "At least go inside and close the damn door!"
But, why?  It's my body, my self.

And it's going to carry me to the Sky Deck of the Sears Tower on November 6th.  I'm going to touch whatever I need to touch to help it do just that.

Times have surely changed.

I Was Appalled, and Then I Wasn't

Mid-afternoon in the grocery store. Not Whole Foods or Sprouts or anyplace special, just my regular old grocery store on a sunny afternoon. There's no shade, so I park as close to the air conditioning as space allows. The local glossy magazine ran an article about the dangers of going outside when the temperatures are in triple digits. Hikers are dropping like foolish flies, taking off for 6 miles in the desert without water, bodies found by frantic rescue teams. I'm taking no chances.


Feeling very self-righteous about taking care of my heart and not over-heating my blood, I cross the asphalt, sipping from my water bottle, admiring the blue skies with high white puffy clouds, watching the cars but not paying much attention to the people around me.


I heard him before I saw him.


A dark braid halfway down his back rested in a sweaty pool on his plaid shirt. His grey shorts came to the pad of his knee walker, his right knee and right hand connected him to his transportation.


His left hand held onto the grocery cart, laden with plastic bags of colorful fruits and veggies and boxers of cereal and rice. That was all I could pick out as he sped down the incline from the entrance of the store, cart dragging walker and looking very precarious.


He came to a perfect stop at the trunk of his car and grinned at my look of horror.


"Oh, please tell me that they offered to help and you refused. Please don't make me have to go in there and holler at them."


He kept smiling as he accepted my outrage on his behalf, as we compared the travails of damaged bodies, as his wife came up and joined the party. Her cart was full to overflowing, as was her laughter. She nodded her head in sympathy to me; what can you do with these men, she seemed to say.


"I told them I'd be fine," he said. "I like doing it, if I can."


And that allowed me to leave outrage behind and join in singing the praises of If I can, I should - my mantra these days. I can carry the smaller baskets of laundry, so I do, even though TBG tells me to wait and tries to take them out of my hands. I do my best with flats of bottled water, though I draw the line at Costco's 40-packs; they are beyond me, for now.


But I force myself to do what I can, to walk when someone offers to get it for me, to park in the farthest spaces in the lot .... once the temperatures drop to a more normal degree. It's a much better outlook than prefacing everything with Can I Should I Will It Hurt Don't.


I heard that running through my head on the treadmill as I began my training program this weekend. It was right in line with let's go home and forget this, but that refrain I had to resist. I've made a public commitment. I'm climbing the Sears Tower. I have to train. I have to get this out of my head.


It's not helpful. It's hurtful. It's on automatic pilot and I need to reboot.


I found myself listening with one ear to the don't's as I heard myself saying aloud You Can Do This.


Seems that I resolved the issue without realizing it. I was announcing to the world (okay, to the sweaty guy in headphones two machines down) that I was capable, that I would finish, that I could do this.


Having a goal in front of me is making a difference. Saying it out loud and in print and in pixels is making a difference. Knowing you are there, watching, waiting, wondering, keeps me focused.


Once again, denizens, Thanks for helping me heal.

A Defining Event

I am going to climb the Sears Tower.

I know, I know, it isn't called Sears Tower anymore, but I worried that opening with the startling announcement that I was going to climb to the top of the Willis Tower would leave you flummoxed, wondering what it was, where it was, and why you should care.  

There are 103 flights of stairs to the Sky Deck.  That's 2,109 steps.

I just got a little teary, thinking of maneuvering myself from the couch to the front door, every one of those 5 steps an exercise in mind over matter, in will over strength, in desire over capability.  

I found an appropriate 8 week training schedule on-line, after discarding those that included jogging and running up stadium steps.

I can do so much more today than I could six months ago, and that can be said for the last five years of six month intervals.  Deep tissue massage combined with Pilates got me here; strength training with weights in the gym combined with intervals on an inclined treadmill and stair climbing twice a week will get me to the Sky Deck.

I am tired of looking backward.  I need a new defining event.

I used to mark my life by where I lived; "We were on Buena."  "That was in the living room in 16.  That happened on Clark Street." Since January 8, 2011, I've marked the passage of time since I got shot.  That's a less than uplifting memory to revisit on a regular basis.

Brother and a Playgroup Mom and I are committed.  The link is here.  If enough of you want to do it, we can make a team.

I am NOT soliciting donations for this.  I'm doing it for myself.  I am accepting encouragement and smiles, though.