Not What I Expected

Sometimes I feel like a traitor to my gender. I have become exactly what I did not intend to be: a wife and stay at home mom.

What I was supposed to be is editor in chief of the New York Times. I should be living in Manhattan, by myself with a dog perhaps. I should still be eating macaroni and cheese from a box and quaffing the finest diet Dr. Pepper. I should not know how to cook, speak French, operate a sewing machine or change a diaper. I should not know how to run a bake sale, fix a clogged sink or diagnose an ear infection. I am doing all of these things under an assumed name, having given up hyphenating my last name when my oldest child went to school. At that time, it just seemed pretentious and complicated. I don’t claim to do any of these things well, but I am certain that I was not really supposed to be able to do them at all.

I went to a women’s college in the 1980s and even that was a surprise to me. From the time I got my first typewriter, I knew I would be a reporter. It was red plastic, manual of course, and I kept track of important things in my 7-year old life. I was always taking notes. From middle school, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Going to college was never a question as both my mother and her mother had gone to college. I truly believe that my early life was so much richer for their experiences and insights as educated women. I graduated from the same school my grandmother attended. I even lived in the same dormitory, 50 years after she did.

When I was in college, I enjoyed participating in student government and of course, the campus newspaper. At that time, my classmates and I were directly benefiting from the women who brought the ERA and NOW and ideas of gender equality to work, politics, life. I had the distinct honor of being sent to pick up Bella Abzug at the airport. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinam and even Phyllis Schafly visited our campus. We were empowered, emboldened, and encouraged to ask questions, question authority and think big. Throughout the campus, we ran the show, unimpeded by male perspective. We celebrated the tremendous achievements of the mothers who went before us, creating a path for us to continue the fight. We respected our place in history and felt ready to take on the future as fully functioning workers. It never occurred to me that there would be any issue of my gender as I looked to the future. Then I graduated. Once we got out there, however, we discovered that despite the gains, there was still a long way to go.

As I moved from one job to the next, I realized that my gender worked for and against me. I know that I was hired at a technical magazine because they needed another girl on the editorial board. I took that job because I wanted the experience. Looking back, I am sorry that being female counted for so much on my resume. Naively, I thought my writing skills were what they wanted from me. Once I got pregnant, it became clear to me that my gender was indeed in the way. It was a tough pregnancy and I got no support from my all-male colleagues. The other girl on the staff was still out on maternity and would come back just in time to take my place.

When I finally met my son, I changed my plan to leave him at six weeks and return to my real life. I realized that it would be better for him and me if I stayed home with him. I got a part time job and thoroughly enjoyed learning how to be a mother. I realized, that I am grateful for the ability to make that choice. In the long run, I believe that my education and work experience are not wasted on my work as a stay at home mom. I believe my children are richer for the things I have learned and our family has benefited overall.

I was reminded of this recently when I read Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Lean In.” My first reaction was to feel insulted. I could not believe that she was so arrogant as to believe that women today are just not trying hard enough. I got the message that we still need to advocate for ourselves and stop being so tentative. It seemed that she was dismissing decades of progress. Who the heck does she think she is? When I discussed this feeling with my college roommate, who does not consider herself a feminist and is working as a corporate executive, I began to see another side. She sees the message in this book as giving a push to the younger women who may not appreciate how they got to where they are today. We both agreed that the possibility of choices – choosing family over career or career over family – are a direct gift of those women on whose shoulders we stand. There is no shame or obligation in either choice.

Now my children are grown and I face a crossroads. I am looking in the mirror and not sure who is looking back. I have time and I have choices and for that, I am truly grateful. Another thing for which I am grateful is that I have raised an intelligent, self-confident daughter, who, at the tender age of 20, is involved on her own college campus with women’s issues. Unlike me, she already knows how to cook, and even made her own prom dress in high school. She recently observed that, “It is not the question of what we can do, but what we choose to do,” when it comes to contemporary gender issues. I am happy to see that perhaps I am not a traitor at all, but a teacher and a leader, in my own small way.

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Posie Paralysis

Our eyes met briefly across the top of thousands of geraniums in a rainbow of colors. We bumped into each other about an hour later. We collided, back to back as we focused skyward on the hanging baskets obscuring the sun. She laughed and patted my hand. “You have it too?” she asked conspiratorially. Yes, I nodded wordlessly. We agreed that we were trapped in the complete inability to make a decision at the garden center and had no idea how to get out.

Every year it is the same: I am paralyzed by choice. Methodically, I visit my favorite local garden centers, spending hours among the hydrangeas, coleus, petunias and begonias. I am fond of making matching pots or baskets for the front porch and the back deck, so I find it challenging to search out the plants and flowers that complement each other. In the beginning, it was simple red geraniums. Everywhere. Then one year we went on vacation and the neighbor who was supposed to babysit my floral friends got distracted and the poor things withered and died of thirst. When I went to replace them, I discovered very little choice so late in the season and ended up with some winsome, miniature petunias. They were white and had sweet potato vines growing among the flowers in the pre-planted pots. End of summer sale – loved it! That fall, I discovered that those vines were not just decorative. We found frozen sweet potatoes in the pots when we went to empty them for the winter.

So, one would hope that after decades of this game, I would have learned sooner to overcome this ridiculous habit and make confident, speedy, pre-planned annual choices. Alas, it was only last year, but the trick I learned then reduced this year’s agony by weeks.

I had been prowling around Locust Glen Garden Center and was finally down to the last two baskets for my deck. I found one that had already been made up – with red geraniums, blue petunias and white lantana. It was festive and bright and perfect for July 4 decoration. Just when I thought I had gathered enough plants to create a matching basket, I spied some amazing purple and yellow flowers in a smaller container. I wavered, as I always do. After I put down the red, white and blue basket, I gathered the purple and yellow, but needed just one more yellow to make my matching set. Minutes turned into an hour and I still could not find the right plant. As I made my way around the corner of the building, I came upon a woman wearing work gloves, surrounded by hundreds of potting plants. She was elbow deep into a large, stone container, reaching for one of my yellow plants, when she noticed me watching her. I expressed complete envy of her eye and skill in putting those containers together to look so artful and unique. She smiled, handed me the yellow plant I needed from her already finished pot and said these three words: “thrill, fill, spill.”

Like so many things in life, the concept is simple and makes perfect sense. As with algebra, physics and the metric system, I would never have figured it out without help from a patient professional. Here is the key to potted plant perfection, the garden center goddess explained. This one, she said, is the tallest element in the pot and provides the thrill, the focal point of the arrangement. Next, you fill in the middle area with smaller scale plants, and finally, you add a plant or two with a horizontal habit so that it spills over the edge of the pot. I was elated to discover that I could easily duplicate her creations at home while chanting thrill, fill, spill, quietly to myself.

Now back to my new friend with the geraniums. She saw the lack of conviction in my eyes and tried to help. She pointed to a hot pink geranium that would have contrasted nicely with the yellow strawflower I was clutching. I thanked her for the suggestion and admitted that all I needed was a “spill” to complete my task. She stepped back a tiny bit, and hesitated before asking, “huh?” I explained the garden center mantra and she raised her hands in victory. I can do that, she told me. Indeed, I agreed. Wishing each other good luck and good gardening, we parted ways.

I left that place without my spill but found it on the way home while stopped at a traffic light. I saw the missing element to my container masterpieces through the fence but had to make plans to return. That second garden center was closed for the day. This year, I have added another helpful habit for myself: I draw a simple sketch and label the plants, including the year and location of purchase. Who knows, I might be able to get it all done in one day next year.

Girls Fly for the first time in Russia

First Flying Females

We watched our tour guide casually hop over a barricade and stand with his heels on the brink, very much alone. Behind him, the ground dropped away and the magnificent Wasatch Mountains spread across the horizon. The wind whipped frozen snowflakes into our eyes and into our gaping mouths. The view from the top of the Olympic ski jump in Park City, Utah is breathtaking from the platform. At the very edge of the steeply sloping strip, where the jumpers perch in preparation for their 60 mph catapult run from track to air to landing, the view actually takes your breath away. As we stamped our feet to keep warm, I could not stop wondering, “why would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily do this?”

The 2014 winter Olympic games, opening in Russia this week, will be history-making as the very first female ski jumpers will be allowed to compete. This is not for lack of wanting to compete in previous games, nor for a lack of trying to compete on an Olympic level. When the winter Olympics became gender inclusive in 1991, (yes, you read that right) the 1924 inaugural events, including ski jumping, were not included. Some old timers even went so far as to suggest that ski jumping could damage a woman’s reproductive organs. And here I am so naïve, it never occurred to me that there was not a women’s event. I thought I just hadn’t caught it on TV.

This is not to say that women have not been ski jumping for more than a century and competing globally in the past decade. The American team, boasts the 2013 World Cup champion and brings impressive credentials to the Sochi games. I can’t wait to see how they compare to their male counterparts. According to the official Women’s Ski Jumping website, the women will only compete in one of three possible events: the 90-meter normal hill jump. Interestingly, just before the 2010 games in Vancouver, American Lindsey Van held a Vancouver K95 record of 105.5 meters for both men and women. That distance would have earned her a podium spot in the men’s competition that year. Instead, she joined a dozen current and former female jumpers in a lawsuit that eventually gave her the right to do this officially in 2014.

In January we visited the Olympic Park, built just outside of Park City in 2002 for the games hosted by the US. Along with our tour, we saw current qualifying action in the luge, bobsled, skeleton and freestyle skiing. Most of these sports share terrifying speed, little physical protection, and contact with frozen surfaces that defy common sense. And yet, these athletes are just so enthusiastic about their sports. We were enjoying a hot drink and mulling aloud, these aspects of winter sport, when a woman sitting nearby joined the conversation. A former Olympian herself, she is the coach of the women’s bobsled team. She looked pretty sane to me and very kindly explained the mechanics of successfully piloting the 2-person bullet-shaped sleds. Speed and subtlety are key components. A tiny shift in weight can send the dual runners beneath the sled in the wrong direction. She explained that the skeleton is a sled sport where single competitors lie on their stomachs, head up, much like we do as children on a gloriously snow covered hill. The luge is also a flat sled but with the opposite technique: single competitors lie on their backs, unable to see where they are going. All of these events go careening down the same ice-covered tube, which is carefully tended by hand with paint brushes and water. There is no Zamboni to smooth out the ice surface like in hockey. Thank God they all wear helmets.

So, how do these brave ski jumpers get their start? I guess it is like anything else, you just see someone else doing it and think, “I can do that, it might be fun.” Most American jumpers hail from Park City and Lake Placid, NY, both sites of winter Olympic games. They usually start between ages 5 and 8 and work their way up from 10, 20, and 40-meter hills to the 90-meter competition runs. Youngsters and female jumpers have historically done what is called “forejumping,” where they take the jump just before an official competition to determine the effects of wind, temperature and weather. Our guide laughingly calls them guinea pigs, adding that it is a privilege and the last step before becoming a competitor.

Like most Olympic athletes, ski jumpers train year round. In Utah, they do their summer jumps on the same winter runs with the ice being replaced by ceramic tracks and grass-like hills. They fly, with the classic V-shape of their skis, bodies bent slightly forward, arms just away from their sides. Instead of landing in a telemark on snow, with one leg ahead of the other, knees bent, the summer jumpers land in a large pool of water. They get the same height, no more than 15 feet above the ground, and claim the same distance thanks to the laws of physics. The facility runs clinics for ordinary folks who want to give this a try, sans ice. You see mostly photos of children doing this, big smiles and dripping hair in each shot.

One of the toughest challenges, our new coach friend told us, is not so much a physical one but is difficult nonetheless: raising funds to keep the training going year round and between competitions. When watching the athletes on TV at the Olympic games, it is easy to forget that these are people who have jobs, families, and lives off of their skis, skates and sleds. “It is truly passion and love for the sport that keeps us all going,” she says smiling.

We stood at the base of the freestyle ski hill watching the young competitors practice. Their coach stood in the middle of the hill with a walkie talkie and we could hear her encourage each one, giving criticism here and there. Each young skier soared through the air, landed with determination and trudged over to the lift to ride back to the top to do it again. And again. We left that day with a deep appreciation for the vast preparation required for that penultimate 10-second jump.

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March is so frustrating!

March is a frustrating month. Even die-hard winter lovers like me are pretty much fed up with cold, cold, cold by the time the Ides of March roll around. This middle of month, enough-already space in our collective psyche is not doing me any good these days. I’ve got a serious case of cabin fever and actually cried out in frustration when the lighter jacket I put on the other day, while the sun was strong and clear, was not nearly heavy enough to keep me from shivering.

            Of course Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was warned of the Ides of March for different reasons, the danger we contemporary New Englanders face is the feeling that picnics, baseball games, waterskiing and long dog walks are just so far away.

            I drive past the garden centers, wistfully peering at their meager pansy offerings. While they are cheerful plants, pansies do not assuage my intense yearning to dig in the dirt. A good friend, who is truly knowledgeable, has already been out in her garden, pruning, digging and getting a jump on the rest of us. She is a much hardier soul than I. If there is still ice under the mulch, I recoil and go back to wishful thinking as I urge the calendar forward just a bit. I don’t mind the hard work, but I crave warm sunshine on my back and a breeze wafting the scent of newly dug dirt and just-unfolding blossoms as I toil in the garden.

            For sure, there are teasing signs of hope. As the morning sun brightens the sky earlier (thanks to daylight savings), I hear birds bravely facing the chill to call spring to life. George, the bald eagle, and his mate Martha have been seen soaring overhead. I hope they have returned to their nest just a football field away from my kitchen window. There have been only a few sightings of my little fox family from last spring. Perhaps they are waiting for warmer weather before they allow the kits out to play and entertain the lucky humans nearby.

            I saw a bunch of intrepid high school athletes out on the fields yesterday. The wind was howling, the wind chill was in the teens and there they were, lacrosse sticks and tennis racquets in hand, doing their best to prepare for this week’s team try outs. This behavior is the very definition of hope and youthful resiliency. The parking lot told a different story. Here, wiser and older parents, remained in their cars with the engines running, some holding steaming cups of coffee as they watched the action through the windshield. Somehow the same weather conditions in the fall are seen as bracing and exhilarating. In March, the cold wind and stubborn flurries are simply tedious.

            For the past few months, we have been fighting the winter blues by playing with a video game called Wii. This thing is truly interactive and can get the most uncoordinated, grouchy couch potato moving and laughing. We do everything from downhill skiing to hula-hooping to yoga with this thing – all on the television. Tennis and bowling not only work out our muscles but our vocal chords as we talk trash and do our best to rile the opposition. The game absolutely transcends the generations because the adults in our house often kick the teenagers out when we want to play. I know senior centers throughout the state use this game to enhance indoor activities for those otherwise unable to enjoy sports when the weather is cold and icy.

Though I look forward to next week's forecast of a comparatively balmy weather, I was not happy about needing to wear mittens when I took my little dog for his walk this morning. I did see something, however, that warmed my heart and made me laugh. It was a bright green Volkswagen Beetle car, sporting bunny ears on either side of its roof and a fluffy pink nose (with whiskers) on the hood. A spring bunny, if you will, hopping down the road towards spring. Such silliness is a true sign of hope that warmer days are surely on their way.

Yoga -- try it, you'll like it

My doctor looked at me over her glasses and frowned slightly. You should really try yoga, she admonished me, not for the first time. It has so many benefits, including fitness and stress release, she continued, why on earth did I not even give it a try?

Actually, I had given it a try and in my estimation, failed in an epic way at the start. But like Goldilocks, I finally found a yoga practice that was just right for me. Ahhhh.

 At the very beginning, I took a class with a friend who is a fitness fanatic and could pass for 30 instead of her 50ish years. We were creating triangles with our bodies, twisting legs, then raising one arm and finally eyes to the ceiling. I could not stop thinking about pretzels as I used my hand to manipulate my uncooperative knee into the right position. My father loved pretzels, the thin crunchy kind. He would eat them along with a cold Coke while watching the Johnny Carson show. I would be allowed to join him for just a few minutes before I was sent back to bed. Which brings me to the other component of yoga that escaped me completely: concentration.

The instructor was telling us to focus on our breath and empty our minds. Let the mind chatter disappear into blissful meditation. I was really trying to do this but knew I was fooling no one when an upside down face appeared before mine and said, “you are not even trying to concentrate.” She was right. I was enjoying the view out the window and thinking of the things I would buy at the grocery store when the torture session, er yoga lesson, was finished. This class was definitely not for me.

A year later, I was encouraged by another friend to try yogalates, a combination of yoga and pilates. While I did not love pilates, I thought I would at least enjoy trying this class which was held in an historic barn. Cool. When I entered, I was pleased to see a few students who looked more like me: not too thin, not decked out in perfect yoga attire, and wearing the same hopeful expression. The teacher was excellent and I found myself enjoying the class, except for the incense she burned. I suppose this was intended to infuse our lesson with good karma. Here I learned about my heartspace and being grateful in the moment. I kept up with this for a few weeks and found true mastery when she added head stands to our routine. For some bizarre reason, I have always been able to do this. I was inspired.

Scheduling and money stopped this experiment. Years passed before I tried again.

This time, I was persuaded by the class description as “gentle” yoga. How hard could that possibly be? When I arrived, I was the youngest person in the room by far, but was soon impressed by everyone else’s flexibility and dedication to the practice. Here, I finally got the breathing thing down for the most part and began to understand how to slow down the hamster on the wheel in my brain. It took me months to join the group when they ended the session with three “oms”. This is a long-winded sound emitted in a breathy growl somewhere between agony and hunger. When I tried it, however, I found it felt great. Expressing all of the air from your lungs is oddly liberating.

My favorite part of the session is at the end. It is called shavasana. This pose is extremely simple. All you need to do is lie on your back, spread eagle, eyes closed and listen to beautiful, tingly Eastern music. The room is darkened and you actually can sleep sometimes. It is a great way to finish the twisting and stretching and it is strangely energizing. While I can’t define what personal enlightenment would be, I certainly feel lighter when I’m finished with each session.

I suppose yoga is called a “practice” for a reason. You really need to experiment a bit and try out different instructors and styles to find the right fit. There is one type of yoga that I will not try under any circumstances. It is Bikram yoga where students do their poses in a superhot room. I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and counterproductive than sweating in a sauna and trying to find inner peace. My husband tried it and said he burned his tongue on his water bottle, forgetting that this would get hot too.

According to the American Yoga Association, more than 16 million people practice today in the US. The history of this activity stretches back thousands of years but only the last hundred or so have been chronicled. Yoga is evolving as its proponents do and that is why there are so many varying interpretations and styles.

We joke at our house about our 12-year old beagle when he stretches out his back legs and tucks his front paws under his chin, eyes up and watching everything around him without moving his head. We call this the “bored dog” pose because he sure looks like he is waiting for something more interesting to happen.

Without knowing it, we are actually at the edge of a new yoga trend: doga. I am not kidding. Somewhere in New Jersey, there is a yoga studio set up for people and their pets. According to the owners of this establishment, dogs get stressed too and react to their people’s stress as well. By doing downward dog, known as play pose for the four-legged participants, they are emptying their minds too. I can’t even imagine what cat yoga would look like.

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Music to whose ears?

Now that my children are on their own, to a large extent, I have reclaimed my car and regained total control over the radio. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I will admit to really enjoying listening to the all-news station for an entire hour if I like, despite the claim that it only takes 10 minutes to give me the world on a particular station. I do not have to pretend to enjoy the latest, whiny pop singers or suffer through Howard Stern. I can also turn off the darned thing and simply drive in silence for a few minutes. True bliss.

I was reminded of this recently as I was unable to drive a car for more than 8 weeks due to a foot injury and was thus subject to the driver’s radio tastes. Again, the pretending and silent misery. At one point, I was driven to desperation and leaned over to punch the small button to “off”, enveloping the car in total quiet. The voices singing along (each with different lyrics) trailed off and they looked at me questioningly. “I just can’t take it anymore,” I said, grumpily crossing my arms with finality. This lead to an interesting conversation about the definition of music and what makes good music good. Oh how these subjective, philosophical arguments make me crazy! It was enlightening, however, to discover that we all seem to have different definitions of music, so I set out to explore this idea a bit more.

Pandora, that miraculous invention of the internet that allows our idea of good music to keep on playing, has certainly saved my sanity at home. Like every other technological advance, I was hesitant and simply did not bother to learn anything about this. My husband decided that I needed to join this century, so he set about creating a Pandora channel for me on my laptop. The basic idea is that you tell this program what band you like, then it chooses other groups that are similar, so you effectively have your own, personalized radio station. When he asked me what group I would like to begin with, I chose Van Halen. He had his back to me and turned with a smile, as if I had told a good joke. “Really?” he asked. Yup. Really. After that I would add Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Pat Metheny and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, along with Maroon Five, Mary J. Blije, James Taylor, Lennie Kravitz and Gwen Stephanie. We would have lost this question on a game show. Can you predict what your own spouse would choose for Pandora channels? Try this experiment, you will likely be surprised.

Intrigued, I did an informal survey, asking how one defines music? The answers were not what I expected. My own view allows that music is a collection of sounds, usually created with instruments and voices, that come together in a pleasing way. Others feel that music is something that moves you, puts you in a good mood or helps you think. Some say music is a reflection of the times, a reflection of your personality, and a way to escape from daily worries. The best answer, however, came via Facebook from someone I have not seen in years. He warned me that I probably would not like his answer. It was three words, “Olivia Newton John” which he underlined with a triumphant, “there, I said it!”

I think about my childhood where I learned torch songs with my grandfather as he played his beloved piano, my father loved jazz and Pink Floyd (making him the coolest dad when I was in high school). With my mom I sang all of the great songs of the 1950s and thanks to other friends with diverse tastes, I know most of the lyrics to the Beatles incredible oeuvre and much of the poetry of Jim Morrison and his Doors. I can name a Nat King Cole tune in less than 10 notes and enjoy all manner of Broadway musical scores. American history is often defined by wars, but it can also be very clearly delineated by changing musical styles. I mock the current pop music as vacuous, monotonous and whiny. I adored the pop music of the 80s when we were in them, but I wonder if I would like it so much now, listening with a mother’s ears? My own mother, was known for her ability to belt out anything produced by the Knack or the Cars, while driving a car full of teenagers here and there. She also sang (and still does sing) along with anything she hears in elevators, grocery stores and shopping malls. This is no longer embarrassing to me, it is simply endearing. Sometimes I find myself doing it too.

I used to be able to count on my oldest to join me in recognizing Led Zepplin, the Allman Brothers and AC/DC on the radio. The youngest had no ear for this classic rock. She enjoyed pop music. They both adore classical music and can even sing very nicely and play instruments. They did not receive these genetic gifts from either of their parents.

I have been surprised recently that their tastes have changed. He is now adding techno and contemporary rap to his playlist. She is reducing the number of whiny songs coming from her earbuds and enjoying what I would call “better” music. When I think of parents who would not allow their kids to listen to Elvis Presley because he was too suggestive, I wonder what they would make of our popular music today. Thanks to singers like Michael Buble and the successful “Jersey Boys” on Broadway, the old-time music is as popular as Flo-Rida and Justin Beiber.  I’m not sure if our aging ears alter our ability to withstand newer forms of music driving us to say to our own offspring, the exasperated words that have been heard by teenagers through the ages: “would you please turn off that noise?”

A few dictionary definitions of the word music include: “Collections of sounds either occurring naturally or deliberately structured in order to invoke some kind of feeling in the listener (who may or may not be the creator of said structure); and a combination of instruments and vocals that creates a melodic rhythm that is generally catchy and fun to sing or dance along with.” This seems like a perfectly reasonable way to define music. However, these descriptions beg us to further define “catchy”, “fun”, and the “feeling” that is invoked. I am certain that Rihanna does not intend to set my teeth on edge and make me desperate to get out of the car, though I’m sure there are some “artists” who desire to do just that.

Crutches

Paper towels. I have been keenly aware of paper towels in the past week and I suspect I may be very much alone in this observation.  Have you ever noticed that the paper towel dispenser in any public restroom is rarely near the sink? I never did. Well, occasionally I get annoyed when one must go from empty dispenser to empty dispenser then finally resort to pants or toilet paper. Imagine how difficult it must be for someone, say in a wheelchair, to go from the sink to the other side of the room (with wet hands) to snag a paper towel after washing hands?

I have been on crutches for the past week and can look forward to several months in this situation as I have a destroyed Achilles tendon and cannot put any weight on my right leg. As I waited for my surgery date, I decided not to miss out on long-awaited theatre tickets and a visit to my beloved US Open tennis tournament in New York City. Using a rented transport chair (similar to a wheelchair but I cannot push the wheels myself), my intrepid husband managed to get me into the theatre, into the stadium, into taxis, restaurants, elevators and up and down ramps. This wheeled solution saved our sanity as my crutch speed has only improved from snail’s pace to tortoise with a week of practice behind me.

The one place my driver cannot take me is the ladies’ room. I’m sure we all appreciate the importance of having handicapped accessibility for the necessary room. There is even a government law for the Americans with Disabilities Act detailing very specific requirements for the width of doors, height of sinks, toilets and handrails, and yes, even paper towel dispensers. The one thing that is not prescribed is the actual distance of the towels from the sink. As a crutch user, I have the strong feeling that most of these guidelines were designed for wheelchair users.

I first noticed this paper towel frustration in the doctor’s office, only moments into my crutch career, when I navigated the hallway, doorway and finally restroom. The dimensions of the space appeared to be totally ADA compliant. However, after using the sink, I turned to find the paper towels at the opposite end of the room, near the door. This is about 8 feet away from me. Wet hands are not the best way to hobble on crutches. This scene repeated in the hospital, the stadium and even a restaurant.

Of course, the paper towels led me to consider other obstacles and believe me, there are so many that we don’t even notice as we ambulate on two good legs.

How about sidewalks, roadways and parking lots? Their uneven surfaces and general need for repair or replacement poses a special challenge to wheelchair navigators or those on crutches. A bump in the cement higher than an inch or two requires a complete stop, arduous lift and shove, then more effort to regain momentum. That’s using the chair. On “sticks” as we say, the main goal is to concentrate on the ground ahead while calculating the uneven terrain and adjusting accordingly. Of course all of this is not impossible, but it poses challenges that I had never considered before. An overturned wheelchair or splayed body with crutches thrown wide is a scenario I would dearly love to avoid at all costs. People walking around you cannot see the chair or crutches so it is up to you to be noticed and avoid collisions. I’m thinking of getting one of those airhorns that fans use at football games. So, we proceed with caution and care.

Stairs – no matter how long, wide or what surface they are made of, are a particularly tricky challenge. There is a video on YouTube showing proper technique for using crutches. The presenter goes into excruciating detail about placement of armpit cushions and how to get into and out of a chair. She does not mention the complete feeling of vertigo and loss of control when you stand at the top of a staircase. The only advice she offers is to “take your time” and perhaps use a spotter the first time. Well thank you Mrs. Obvious. If the stairs number more than three, I use the age-old keister method. It is inelegant but gets the job done with no nausea and fear of falling. When I do navigate a few stairs, I go in slow-motion and consider the varying heights, carpet or smooth surface, wind speed and other distractions. Arduous, yes, but so far so good.

I will admit that this is not the first time I have been on crutches. In 6^th grade I broke my ankle trying to teach my brother how to skateboard. Too bad I didn’t know how to do it myself. I recall going to the middle school dance on crutches and trying to do the Hustle, but the most vivid memory is the stairwell at the public library. Since I couldn’t do much while in the cast, I read a lot of books. My mother would take me to the library once each week and we would emerge with the maximum number of books allowed. There were no rules for ADA compliance back then, so no elevator to get me to the stacks. It was an all-day event but we managed for a few weeks that summer and I’m sure my mother is grateful this was my only broken bone.

Aside from the humorous mental images of me hobbling around on these things, I have also noticed the use of the words “handicapped” and “disabled” as completely interchangeable and that is not true. The definitions are quite different but negative connotations make the term disabled preferable to handicapped for those dealing with such things every day. I don’t know why being disabled (a state in which one is not able to do something) is seen as better than being handicapped (a disadvantage that makes success more difficult). Difficult is not impossible. This is proven as we see the inability to walk made possible by any number of wheeled contraptions or the humble crutches. I feel fortunate to face my situation in a temporary way. While I thought I had respected those in wheelchairs, on crutches and depending on others to ambulate, I truly did not appreciate their constant challenges until I rolled a mile in their tracks.

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