Slow
Thinking all the time about how I move now. How the only rapid motion out of this body is involuntary, like pulling back from a hot stove.
And yet there was that time about a month ago when I picked up a grill plate, not knowing one side was cold but the other on fire. Bare hands.
I stood holding the heavy iron and felt it sear the flesh of my left hand, and calmly said, “I need ice. And I need to put this down.” Just dropping it would have meant causing damage in other places.
My friends came. It was okay, but I have a scar.
That woman who held on and didn’t drop the thing, she is new to me.
She is me.
Down
I have friends with grandbabies now. Yesterday, one laughed about playing with these babies on the floor.
“It’s harder to get up than I realized.”
I say, “It sure is.”
But what I think is, “Welcome.”
Rise
At the gym, some asshole has left my favorite treadmill jacked up to a 10 incline when he quit. Apparently, resetting the equipment to a flat plane was beyond him.
This kind of person is everywhere.
But so am I.
Up
I have a portrait. It’s kind of the anti-Dorian Gray. It never changes. But I am changing.
At the same time, I’m not sure I am. Changing.
Back to the portrait.
Hold
I find myself tempted to just stop. To think this is all enough, I should be grateful, don’t push it, just keep what you have and stop.
Then I think about the sensation of the hot iron. Maybe don’t hold forever.
On
Everyone is fascinated these days with sleep. I am bombarded with unsolicited tips on how to let my body turn off when I want it to.
No screens. Warm baths. Activity. All of that.
But I can’t stop thinking about being on. It’s always on, even when I’m asleep, or halfway so.
This morning I opened my eyes and saw something that was not there. This used to disturb me more than it does now. Now, I close my eyes until the thing that is not there is gone.
Let
Back to “let my body” under ON.
I need more time on this one.
Go
I think about the pivot points when I’ve just said, GO.
These points are very few and far between.
My sister taught me a thing last year, a countdown when all seems too hard. “Tell yourself you will GO on 3. Then say it out loud. 3, 2, 1.”
It seemed too childish and simple to work.
You can’t say it until you are ready to say it. Like real prayer.
Because when you say real prayer, everything will change.
__________
Photo by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash
Elizabeth Gaucher earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from West Virginia Wesleyan College with a concentration in Creative Nonfiction. She is the founder of and editor-in-chief for the online literary magazine, Longridge Review. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, she lives with her husband and daughter in Virginia. Follow her on Twitter @ElizGaucher