Feeling Better & Seattle

After feeling kind of blue about the Boy for the past few days, I am starting to feel better. Maybe that time in the Lego room has helped. Maybe because my trip to Montana is coming up in less than a week. Maybe my grief is starting to abate.

Maybe I am feeling better because fall has started in a good way. Of course, I miss the start of school for the Boy and being part of the school community, but arts season is upon us, thank god. I think the art gods and fairies decided to start right after the equinox when the daylight in Seattle shrinks to nothing. Last weekend, I saw Whim W'him Seattle Comtemporary Dance Company with a friend. Contemporary dance can be kind of weird (there was one dance where the performers had made bizarre facial expressions the whole time), but it can be refreshing after seeing Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty over and over. While I love the Tchaikovsky ballets, they are very formal. This weekend will bring the Seattle Children's Theatre opening night and Carmina Burana at the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Which makes me think about Seattle. I met guy on my recent trip to Chicago who said his favorite city in the U.S. is Seattle. I can agree with that, but I wondered when he saw Seattle. It is easy to fall in love with Seattle in August. If he had said he loved Seattle in December, then I would have been seriously impressed, but then maybe not if our moderate winter beat the arctic chill of midwest in the winter. Instead, he saw Seattle in April, May and September, which is just about right. The weather in Seattle can be kind of fussy then, but can also be lovely. More than other cities, I think the ever changing weather can play a big role in how Seattle feels. Any season in Chicago can have bright, blue sunny days, even super cold days in January. Seattle isn't so fortunate. In addition to rainy winters, the daylight hours shorten from sixteen hours at the summer solstice to less than eight at the winter solstice.

Today was a typical Seattle fall day. The morning starts of cold and dreary, and then by the afternoon the clouds have burned off and it is sunny and warm.

I guess my mood this week has reflected the daily weather patterns. It started out kind of blah, but then slowly got better. I guess my mood is getting better, too. Last night, I was on the Wilderness Therapy mediation phone call for parents. Even though the Boy finished a month ago, I love to list to Hector's soothing voice one a week. (Hector is the Yoda of parent/child relationships in Wilderness therapy.)

The first half of the call is listening to Hector. The second half parents get to ask a question to the group. I realized how much better I am feeling when I was able to offer support and advice to a newbie parent on the call who was overwhelmed with grief that her daughter was sleeping under a tarp in Colorado instead of attending her Homecoming Dance.

I think right now my mood about the Boy would be like noon at Pike Place Market--gray and kind of gloomy, but the forecast shows brighter skies coming up soon.

Morning

Morning. I had to sneak that geranium in the left corner so this picture wasn't too bleak.

Pike Place Market at lunch. Still kind of gray.

Elliott Bay in the evening

Along Elliott Bay

Mt. Rainier is hiding behind clouds.

Standing Still and Work

Yesterday, I was at physical therapy. Part of my home exercise program (aka HEP) is to do three sets of standing on injured/recovering leg for one minute. Evan had me to this yesterday in therapy. I asked how I should hold my good leg.

"How about up at ninety degrees?" he suggested.

"Okay," I said. I did as told, no problem.

When the timer rang, he said, "That was too easy. Put your good leg out and then move it back and forth, but slowly, and then hold it in position for a few seconds before you move it back. When you stretch your leg back, bend your torso so it is even with your leg."

Okay, fine. This was harder than I thought it would be. I was sloppy, but could get through it.

The thing that stuck with me was the "too easy" part. Can't something in this process be too easy? There are million of things I can't do yet. Can't I celebrate and slack with maybe the handful of things I can actually nail?

I thought about standing still. As you may have figured out by now, I am a balletophile. Dance was my "sport" growing up. One of the very first things you learn in ballet is how to stand still. Why? There are many times where lots of dancers are on stage and only a few (or one) are moving. Here is one of my favorite pieces of classical ballet, the pas de quatre from Swan Lake.  Notice the four dancers moving in perfect unison. It is brilliant. Now notice the two dozen dancers standing perfectly still on the sides of the stage. They are are doing a great job of standing still for more than a minute and a half. You can't see them in every shot of the video, but in a live performance, they flank the stage and don't move while there are solos, pas de deuxs, etc.

I am good at standing still. Ta da! Yet, there is much more work to be done in building my endurance and strength. Let me emphasize work. I am almost six weeks post-surgery and I have a new perspective. I remember once before my surgery, I was in the Sports Medicine Clinic waiting room and a woman struck up a conversation with me. She was older, probably in her sixties. She was going to need a second surgery on her knee because she didn't do physical therapy after the first surgery. I wonder if the clinic paid her to sit there and tell people that. She was the cautionary tale of what happens when you don't do your PT.

I thought I would enjoy PT as a way to get back into shape after the surgery. I enjoy exercising, even if I hadn't made it a high level priority before my skiing accident. At the very least, I walked my dog two or three times a day. I remembered my Grandma Jennings would walk with her friend Inga every day and that was her exercise. (Those women were fast walkers and talked as they clipped along.*) I figured walking Fox was at least as good as the exercise my grandmother got. A neighbor of mine got spinal cancer a dozen years ago and her doctor told her to get a dog so she would walk an hour a day. She did. Her cancer went away and Mittens is a fixture in our neighborhood.

One of my goals is to walk my dog again. I didn't realize what a low-bar goal this was. I walked my dog the other night, but I still can't walk up or downstairs properly. This bring me back to physical therapy. I had thought PT would help me progress faster and more efficiently. I thought there would be natural healing, and the PT would supplement it.

Now I get the sense that that notion was wrong. While there is natural healing of my knee, the PT is a necessary step to regaining my functionality. While I am choosing to go to PT and am working on my home exercises, PT isn't a choice. I have to do it if I want to walk up and downstairs again like I used to.


* When I would visit my grandmother, I would occasionally join my grandmother and Inga in their walk. I remember the last time I walked with them a few weeks before my grandmother died. "If you ever need to get a divorce, get a good lawyer," my grandmother said.

"Get one of those lady lawyers," Inga said. "They work so hard." Her niece had divorced a partner in the accounting firm where I used to work. According to Inga, he made an obscene amount of money. I guess this lady lawyer made sure Inga's neice and her family were well taken care of.

Ballerina Dreams

Last night, I went to the a studio rehearsal for the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Sleeping Beauty.  I had never been to a studio rehearsal, and it was great to see all of these people I've watched for years on stage behind the scenes.  My son and I were in the balcony, spying on the dancers below in their workout clothes and no makeup, watching who was chatting with whom.

My son's music teacher said most people she talks to wish they still played an instrument.  I didn't really like playing the flute, but I wish I had never stopped dancing.  When I think about what I want to be when I grow up, I dream of being a dancer.  It is interesting to have this dream when I am 44, beyond the age where that could ever be a reality, where my career would be behind me.

I took ballet as a kid.  My teacher, Ms. Lenore Desmarais, was a professional dancer who had danced with Gene Kelly.  She was old, and lied about her age to get a job teaching dance to kids at the Park District.  She was old school:  there was no pretending we were baby birds skipping around in a circle.  Barre work, French terms and classical music were de rigeur.  Starting pointe at age ten was common -- nine if you were really good.

It was hard work, too.  While Miss Lenore was nice enough, the constant stream of corrections could be hard on the ten year old ego.  Point your toe, Laurie.  Lift your leg, Amy.  Shoulders back, Susan.  Leslie -- chin up.  Tuck in your butt, Julie, were heard every Saturday.  At times she would grab your foot and turn your leg the way it should be.  (She would tell us her childhood ballet teacher whacked girls with a stick if they were off.  One day, her dad came in and glared at the teacher.  The whackings stopped.)  Comments to one were comments to all, even if your name was attached to the correction.  If your mom was watching class, she would gush about how wonderful you were.  If not, your name was in the rotation.  I loved to dance, but got tired of the constant nagging.  It reminds me of the old expression, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Even still, we all liked Miss Lenore.  Her criticisms were true, and she made us better dancers.  When I watch the professionals, they make it look so easy and fun.  We don't see the years of hard work, the sore feet, the steel egos that take the beatings all in the name of beauty and art.

Still, I dream.  It makes me happy, imagining I am on stage with the lights, the costumes, the music and the curtain rising, preparing to take flight.