On Beth’s meditation: Falling

Beth uses her seizures and falling as a metaphor for the difficulties that people face, and enjoins her friends to see people’s falls (in the sense of adverse circumstances) as an opportunity to be the hero we imagined ourselves as children.

I fall quite often. It comes free with the bad hips, bad knees, bad ankles and bad feet. What I have learned is there is no point to fighting it. When I feel me going down, I bring me down instead of trying to stay upright. People often think I just suddenly decided to sit. Indeed, I did. I decided that suddenly sitting would be better than suddenly slamming into the floor. Gravity is a harsh mistress.

It’s peculiar who will stop to help and who will make it a point to not see that any help is needed. Some people are terrified to acknowledge that others are having difficulties, even small ones. To notice the needs of others would force them to have to consider helping. To refuse to help would make them Bad People. But to offer help would undermine their autonomous self-image, since in the act of rendering real assistance, the helper and the person being helped become one in their goal. And some people fear being helped for exactly that reason, that loss of the illusion of independence. I mean, it is an illusion. We are all interdependent, we truly cannot live without each other.

Declaration of Interdependence

The best thing about disability is that it really brings home the truth that community and individualism are intertwined. The best community is one that supports individual achievement and difference, and the best individual is one that gives back to community.

Elizabeth is a great example of that in action. Beth has repeatedly defied society’s vision of what someone in a terminal condition should be doing (i.e. looking at plants), and dared what so many of the rest of us have only dreamed. But she does it, in large part, knowing that she has supporters, people who think the world of her and her fierce determination. What she does, who she is, how could she do or be without any of us? When we cheer her, we cheer us, too. And she gives back fully. By daring to take risks, she encourages the fainter hearts among us to do what otherwise might only be a dream. Carapace (yes, I’m prejudiced here) is another person whose independence and individualism is supported by a community, and she gives back to make the community stronger. She doesn’t do it the way Elizabeth does. She does it by dint of her sunny personality. Right now, she can only work a few hours a week, due to her seizures. But because her boss tolerates her seizures, her husband and I provide transportation, and the US taxpayer covers her medical expenses, the reward is that everyone who comes to the desk when she is on duty goes away feeling better about themselves. She has a compliment for everyone, insidiously spreading good will and positivity every chance she gets. Take a look at Stephen, over in the UK. He’s the first to tell us all that his wellbeing is dependent upon a community that cares about him as an individual. From his loving wife, to his mother-in-law, to the infamous NHS, a community web exists that allows him to make his individual contribution to the greater good. Where would his kids be without him? Or the many friends and kinsmen who count on him as part of the joy in their world? I could go on, but I’d really rather people tell me about how they see this interdependence in their own lives. (Yes, that’s a plea for comments).

Where the individual wheels, the path becomes smoother for those coming behind, who are not trailblazers, and for those who are adventurous by nature to take new, fresh risks that will continue to open the path for the community. So, by supporting individualism, the community benefits by having individuals who are more able to be part of the community.

Happy Interdependence Day, everyone.

Change

I’ve been planning on writing on the topic of identity for some time now. With Elizabeth going through the repercussions of a serious seizure, I think maybe now would be a good time. So, Elizabeth, this is for you.

Back in the late 1980s, I could write up a storm. I could read a dense academic book, cover to cover, in one weekend, and push out 10 or more pages of coherent prose about it. I can’t do that anymore. What happened? I had a major, protracted period of depression, and emerged from it different than I was. Different, but not worse. I now can’t read dense prose without falling asleep, and have to reread pages, repeatedly, if I am sidetracked at all. I struggle to keep focus in writing, to have a consistent thesis or even theme. But like I said, I’m not worse for the changes. I also used to be dysthymic and anxious. Now, no, not really. I can’t remember the last time I panicked or spent the day in tears. My brain has re-wired. There have been trade-offs, but I am not displeased with the new me. While it has taken me a while to accept myself as I am now, I do indeed accept me. And I never did before.

MD used to read 500 pages in a day. She was such a voracious reader that she reviewed books just to have them sent to her. She’d get a dozen a month, and still be borrowing books from everyone and every library. Then she went into what was essentially a year-long seizure. She also finds herself falling asleep while reading, which she never used to do before, so her reading speed has slowed down to maybe 300 pages a day, which is nearly half what it once was. But, she tells me, there has been a trade. She now vividly dreams what she has read, in such detail and color that she prefers her new ability to the old one.

We change all the time. The changes can be outward–stretch marks, loss of strength, loss of bits and pieces. They can be inward, with loss of mental agility or even new gifts to replace the lost old. We are shifting, never the same. The idea of self as static must give way to the idea of the fluid self, pouring over the terrain of life, adapting to whatever environment we find. Here we are fresh and clear and bubbling. Here we are constrained, dark, and deep. Here we flow underground, and there we re-emerge as a spring. The important thing is to keep flowing, and we each find our ways of doing so.