Monday, November 23, 2009

learning how to walk

I had my first session with the physical therapist today. I'm learning how to walk all over again. Fortunately I don't have to start all the way from scratch, but sheesh, it's only about half way from scratch. My muscles seem to want to do strange things all of their own, and that coordinated body movement we all take for granted when we step or sit down has been hit hard. But it's not gone. There are many things that will have to be retrained: just stepping one foot in front of the other in a coordinated motion is a mighty tricky business. Lifting one leg independently from a prone position takes a lot of serious concentration. But it's doable, and it's so interesting to me to notice for the first time all these tiny coordinated little movements our bodies negotiate when we do even the most mundane of things.

So what I can do now: I can stand, but not on my own; my balance is not good and I go over at the drop of a hat. I've got a walker to help me. I can type, obviously, which is wonderful. But not as well as I did. Some of the coordination was lost there, too. But it's coming back with practice (and I practice a lot!). I can eat with a fork, a little clumsily. I can dress, but I can't do things like tie knots in a scarf anymore. I need that scarf, you know, because I want to hide my surgery. No need to horrify the passers-by. Things that require kind of a coordinated backwards motion are insanely complicated for me. Trying to pull a knit shirt over my head and to get my arms into the sleeves is not, as it turns out, a user-friendly process.

But I still know my times-tables--go figure! And I still remember my important medieval factoids. At least I thought they were important factoids, once upon a time. Now I'm not so sure they are. But it's all there, and finding the way back to them gets easier every day. It's a crazy business, this life stuff, isn't it? But wonderful, and fascinating.

I'm going to have so much stuff I want to write about and share, stuff that I want to know if other people have seen or experienced or thought about ever, too. I want to know everything now. It's so stunning to me now that I've spent so much of my life wrapped up in a myopic, insulated little world, when there's so much more there than I ever had any idea of. Thank you so much for your generosity in reading--it means so much to me, and your kind comments do, too. You have no idea how much you all touch me just by reading.

This life stuff--it's just not what we thought it was. We've gotten much of it so wrong. But we can still get it right.

5 comments:

DC said...

Re-learning how to walk is most indeed the most challenging thing ever and it is a journey! If you practice walking as much as you do typing you will do fine in time. Please ask your physical therapist if he/she would advise you to put tennis balls on the back legs of your walker-they make walking on tile and carpet much easier! I can vouch for that!

ilovepenguins said...

Professor Amtower,
Thank your for sharing your recovery with the world. It takes a lot to be open, even if its just revealing how much you love coffee or learning to walk again. You are an amazing writer. Please continue to write. My prayers are with you.
~Rachael Phillips, a Folk Lit. student

Anonymous said...

I've been rather coordinated most of my life. Playing sports and climbing trees, musical instruments and what not, I'd rarely been confronted with body-weirdness, until I took dance--modern, jazz and ballet--in my late 20s for about a year.

I'd never learned to dance before that, so my body had neither the flexibility it needed or the memory it acquires when it has learned something. I'd never done gymnastics either.

Anyway, I remember one day, climbing a staircase, and being suddenly unable to coordinate my steps up the stairs. My brain/body was clearly so involved with learning to dance, even when I wasn't dancing, it momentarily forgot how to climb stairs.

Anonymous said...

We take so much for granted in life. Little movements, feelings, grace. Thank you for reminding me that nothing should be taken for granted. Still praying....

JustKristin said...

How much would I give, what would I risk to come to similar conclusions about life? I am envious in some ways, as stupid as that sounds.