HOLISTIC, MY ASS

 In the summer of 1987, my holistic health counselor insisted I go to a two-week retreat in Mt. Shasta to be with a self-proclaimed healer.  I was afraid to go but it turned out to be incredible and I seemed to have a better gait when I got home.  I think Mt. Shasta is a beautiful place to be.  I met a lot of great people there.  I didn't understand the morning lectures that he gave but I had so much fun.  I was lucky that in part of the 2 weeks, someone rented a horse for me to ride up one of the mountains where we camped out one night.  It was so beautiful.  Two other people who were disabled also rode horses up the mountain.  Well, we were actually guided by someone who knew what they were doing because I sure didn't.  There was a chef that brought food on llamas so we weren't exactly roughing it.  I did however sleep in a sleeping bag outside.  One of the many health benefits was massage therapy.  When I arrived after the four-hour flight, I was in so much physical pain, that I couldn't open my eyes fully.  Every time this one lady saw me, she would start to giggle.  It was hard to disguise how I felt and I giggled with her.  This was within the first couple of days.  So, I was happy to get a massage.  This woman was such a talented massage therapist that as she worked with me, the pain started to dissipate a little and as always, I started to fall asleep.  What I know about the pain I have, is that sleep is about the only thing that gets rid of it when it's really bad.  She started to tell me that I could let out any emotion I was feeling, but what I was feeling was relief, and that wonderful feeling right before you fall asleep.  She said, "It's almost like you don't want to be here."  She said to let the feelings out.  I wanted to say that I had no freaking feelings, so just shut up so I can get to sleep.  After it was done, I felt so much better.  She said, "I'm sorry, but you will never be able to get the full benefit of this until you're willing to feel your feelings, and that's why your body has so many issues."  I was very angry, and I saw the healer on my walk back to my cabin.  I told him what happened and he asked why I suppressed my feelings, but it didn't help.  I went into my room I was staying in and cried.  Not because she captured some feelings, but because she said some rough stuff to me.  When I saw the lady who massaged me, I told her I cried after and she was very happy.  Sorry, I think I definitely have suppressed feelings, and I've covered them up with humor, but I think she crossed the line.  I think that holistic folk need to study how to be human beings with people that are chronically ill or have a temporary physical issue. I think it would be so nice if they met you where you were at and I was at the, "I need to sleep." time.

COMPLAINERS

 I was hesitant to write about this because I am throwing my dad under the bus.  He was really great in many ways.  He was great in many ways, and in many other ways, he just was awful.  I was very fortunate to have him and my mother and my two brothers.  I was a spoiled bratty kid, preteen, teenager and young adult.  Today I got to spend a little time with two dear friends, and we talked about Gestalt therapy.  I was lucky enough to be in one of their support groups 30 years ago and found it to be a great experience.  One of my friends said, "All you did was complain about it."  Whatever.  When I was in the group, I shared a weird experience with my father.  I was twelve and one girl used to make fun of me in class. I finally told my dad, and for some reason, we were alone one evening.  He was very kind and talked to me for a long time and I felt so much better.  Then right away he yelled at me about something, and I asked why he was so angry, and his response was, "I just wanted to see if you could take it, and you can't."  When I shared this little bit with the group, very quietly I heard a small collective gasp.  That seemed to be enough to affirm how bad his behavior was.  But then one of the counselors put a chair in the middle of the group and told me to tell my father how I really felt but I couldn't do it.  When everything was over, I said that my hands were shaking and one of the counselors asked if my hands could talk, what would they say.  I responded with, "I'm lonely.", and I broke down and cried.  The weight of the world seemed to have lifted on my drive home.  I turned on the radio and for some reason I had it on a Christian station.  Something I didn't normally listen to, and a choir of men and women were singing "Amazing Grace".  It was lovely and just what I was feeling.  I thought that God, whoever, the Universe was saying that it was really great to have my feelings and to not run away from them and love myself through the feelings.  I was.  Then the choir got bigger with each verse or repeated verse.  They added more voices.  This might sound weird, but I felt that the voices were sort of inside of me shouting out.  I never talked to my dad about that incident.  I didn't need to and I'm sure he forgot about it.  What I needed was God saying, "That ain't cool what your dad did."  I don't think one can forgive if they don't know who or what to forgive.  And Gestalt helped me with that.  

PLEASE NO ADVICE

August 28, 2022

I have been thinking a lot about what happened to me since I broke my back in 1980.  I think that I was so thrilled at the idea that I might walk again, and that seemed to be enough to make me happy.  That and I had a place to go after 10 weeks in the hospital.  This was back when you could stay there.  The doctor felt I was getting such good physical therapy where I was at that he didn't think I should go into rehab.  I know this sounds weird, but I was looking forward to rehab.  To me, it would be like camp.  People who were also disabled would be there and it would be a whole new world.  There was so much positive energy when I was in the hospital and after a few weeks, I was actually having a wonderful time there.  Friends would visit, and some took me out for dinner, I made friends with the physical therapists, and I was certain that I would be 100 percent healed within a year.  I was in almost a constant state of gratitude.     

This feeling however came at a price.  When I first stood up from my wheelchair, my amazing physical therapist pulled me up in between two parallel bars and I couldn't feel the floor under my feet.  I felt like I was standing in a hole, and I thought this was a joke or something.  My brain could not comprehend this at all.  She had a sash around me and was doing the holding and I could only handle the one bar with the left hand and the right was in a cast.  I sat down and just was beside myself in tears.  My therapist tried to explain stuff to me and then walked away.  I turned and looked, and she was crying.  When I got back to my room I wasn't just crying, I was enraged.  I did not get it all.  My mother and brother came in and the weirdest thing happened.  I was certain that I had to go to the bathroom, and they wouldn't let me.  It was hell. I kept feeling my butt because I thought I had shit my pants. I didn't have bladder or bowel control and couldn't feel much in that region. I couldn't wrap my brain around this one and it started sending me even further over the edge.  I felt that I had no reason to live.  I told my mother that if she couldn't tell me why I was on this earth, then I didn't want to be here anymore.  I wasn't making much sense when I was talking, and I wanted to end my life.  People called and I couldn't stop crying when I spoke to them.  Then I don't know if the doctors gave me some anti-depressants but I started to feel better very gradually and after several days, my legs got a tad better and I became very hopeful and learning to walk again was fun.  Then when I finally was released and my parents came to take me home, I was in bliss.  We came from Columbus Ohio to Cleveland, and it was fall.  Watching the trees changing color was magic and I just knew this was how life was supposed to be.  Magic.  Wayne Dyer had come to see me while I was in the hospital, and told me I would walk again if I wanted.  Seemed easy enough.  I was able to take several steps with two crutches and braces up to my knees.  All seemed easy.  The worries were gone.  

Things were very simple as the weeks went by.  I got the dorsi flex back in my left ankle and folded up my chair.  Around the house I walked but when I was out I used my wheelchair.  My sweet friends made sure to get me out of the house as much as I could and my father let me work with him at his office which was great.

Then things got tough.  The two rods in my back moved causing a great deal of pain.  You could see two bumps sticking out of my back from where they were.  About a year after my injury, we went back to the doctor, and he said to get that looked at in Cleveland and I did.  It took forever to get that surgery.  In the meantime, I became very sick with one infection after another, and I was so confused.  I couldn't sit for any length of time to work.  The pain in back increased and the quality of my life for a 25-year-old was terrible.  I was doing some community theatre and was made fun of by a few people.  One said, "What do you do all day?" and just had to know. and got louder with this at a bar we went to after a play.  I was applying for disability and started to get it, but I also had a case pending so legally I couldn't work but I didn't think it was any of her business.  I asked what she did all day, and her day was pretty full.  These people worked full time at regular jobs and then did plays at night.  I had great respect for them but could not keep up.  When I started to take swimming lessons twice a week complete with weights on my legs, I would come home and sleep three hours.  Then my mother would put her loving arms around me and crack my back.  It was the crack that was heard around the world.  Then I have very little pain and I would go to rehearsal.  When I mentioned the clothes kids wore that I could see coming home from school as I headed to the YMCA, a friend said, "NO didn't see them. Some of us work for a living."  He wasn't being funny.  I finally had that surgery and the doctor said I would no longer be in pain.  I was and still am.  And it's a bitch.  

Many people have said that I didn't grieve enough.  Other doctors have said that the pain in my body is so bad that everything else has shut down causing infections.  I couldn't believe that Wayne Dyer came to see me and I felt I had kind of let him down.  I was embarrassed or rather ashamed by that.  The magic I felt after about a year slowly drifted away and I was so scared.  Moving back in with my parents was not easy.  It was almost like I became emotionally arrested and went backwards in my thinking.  That year before I broke my back was bliss.  Years later when I went back to see my college professors, two commented on how happy I was the last year I was in Athens Ohio.  I learned then that happiness is an inside job.  Not until I was 23.  My private time was sacred back then and I felt almost that I wasn't even in control.  Something bigger was guiding me.  It was a very easy ritual I had to say before I fell asleep, "Thank you."

So now, 42 years later, I still walk but I'm not 100% like I thought.  And I work but its sporadically, and I still feel some shame at times.  I work hard in physical therapy to make sure if I can't get every muscle and nerve back, I can keep what I have.  I definitely am not in the state of bliss I was before I broke my back and right after, but right now I'm experimenting and saying, "Thank you" anyway before I go to sleep.  Maybe it will switch things around.

.

WRONG

 August 9, 2022

A couple of weeks ago I was going up an escalator and fell.  They stopped it and my legs were up in the air.  Thankfully, I was fine.  I have fallen in the past 42 years so many times and most of the time it is very funny.  My mother used to say I fell so much when I first was learning how to walk again, that it was a wonder I didn't get brain damage or drain bamage, I can't remember.  One time Dancing Wheels was dancing at the Akron University and I fell in our dressing room.  The standup dancers were laughing once they realized I was ok.  It's fine.  I actually love it.  When I was in Dancing Wheels we had morning class before rehearsal.  I did my best to do the stretches and workout on the floor that the standup dancers did and many times made a mess of things.  The wheelchair dancers just did stuff with their arms but I figured since I could walk, I could do some of the other stuff.  One time we had to sit, lift our legs up in a V and hold our arms out.  I don't have much feeling or muscles in my hips and I fell backwards.  I didn't think much of it, but when we did it the second time and I fell, the woman next to me laughed so hard that she started crying.  Sometimes in the morning instead of our usual workout, we did ballet class and did some bar exercises which I stood up for.  As they got ready, someone would say, "Try not to look at Chris.", because she knew they would laugh.  I drive with hand controls because I have very little feeling in my feet.  My right foot has a mind of its own.  I think crippled and gay is way too much for one person to handle but crippled gay and falling all the time is just wrong.

ALMA

I keep thinking about my cousin who has just entered assisted living and what kind of life she has led all these years and her kindness.  I sometimes thought she had a sixth sense at times when I needed her the most.  She always spoke softly to me and I never saw her complain.  She had 4 amazing children and 13 grandchildren and now one great grandchild.  She fell and broke her hip and is recouping from that.  She can get around pretty well with her walker.  When I went to see her, three of her grandchildren were there to visit and help.  She said, "Don't I have wonderful grandchildren Chris?" I agreed of course.  One thing that always stuck with me was on my 27th or 28th birthday she called me.  I was still living with my parents and my mother had to work that Sunday evening.  My father was not happy that day and started to yell at me for never telling him what happened when I fell off that roof and broke my back.  I knew I told my parents and everyone what had happened, but he either forgot or just wanted an argument.  So I told him the story again.  I told him I was on the flat low roof at first shoveling shingles into a wheelbarrow, I was then asked to go on the higher raked roof and I did.  We took a break and we went back up.  I was too scared to stand on the roof and shovel, so I sat on the edge and grabbed the old shingles and threw them in the truck below.  I didn't remember anything after that until I was in midair and was falling.  And that was that.  "And you just went, didn't you!"  He was anything but happy.  Later, my cousin called.  "Happy Birthday Chris!" Thank God a sweet kind voice on the other end of the phone.  I was relieved it was someone kind like Alma.  She talked to me about her gum surgery and said, "Floss Chrissy, floss!"  She made sure to keep in touch with me after my mother and father died and has kept me abreast of all that has happened with her family.  For awhile it seemed I was on her payroll.  When I had my breast reduction, she sent me a check and said in the card, "You're going to need some new clothes."  When I first came home from the hospital after I broke my back, she sent me a check.  I was going to a friend's wedding the day after I got home from being in the hospital for ten weeks, she said, "I figured you would need money for a wedding gift."  It was so thoughtful.  Different holidays, she would send a card with a check.  Now she is getting a little bit forgetful but before Christmas I got a card.  I was in shock that she even thought of me at this time.  I checked with her daughter and said that I knew she must have helped.  Her daughter said I was first on her list and they couldn't get out a lot because her attention span was short.  Honestly?  I felt honored.  I'm no longer on the payroll but I'm fine with that.                                                 

QUEENS GAMBIT

I watched the documentary on Walter Tevis.  He wrote Queens Gambit.  He was a professor at 

Ohio University when I was there.  His daughter was my first roommate in college and I was very 

lucky that I got to meet him.  At the beginning of the quarter, maybe even before classes had started, he was driving us back to our dorm from somewhere and he made funny comments about the students.  "Look at em!  Look at em!  All they care about is sex!"  He was of course kidding and I giggled like an idiot.  Back then, I didn't know he was a famous writer, he was just my roommate's dad and one of our professors.  When I found out he had written "The Hustler", I was so impressed, and of course, as I always did back then, told 400 of my closest friends.  He gave a signed copy of the book to me to give to my parents and unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to it.  He had written the book, "The Man Who Fell To Earth", and it was already made or going to be made into a movie with David Bowie.  People in our dormitory teased my roommate that she would probably go to go to the premiere and get to sit next to Mr. Bowie.  We figured they would soon be a couple.  This went on for a long time but I don't remember if the family ever got to the premiere.  One time he stopped over on a Saturday looking for his daughter.  The place was a mess and I was in my leotards and tights doing whatever exercises they had us do in our movement class.  I was a theatre major, and it seemed theatre majors were always in their leotards and tights. (Just the girls)   The expression on his face when he saw the room was priceless but he didn't say a word about it.

As was told in the documentary, Walter had a drinking problem, but I never saw any of that.  I did hear from some of his students about what a fantastic teacher he was.  I met one of his students that summer here in Cleveland when I was a cashier at Gold Circle.  She couldn't say enough about him as a teacher.  He left around my third year at O.U. and later I had wished I had taken a class from him.  His daughter and I had many laughs and she was very quick witted and worked hard.  One of her funny expressions was, "Shitfire!"  I recall reading one of her papers for an English class.  She seemed to have that great gift of writing where you laugh and cry at the same time.  My second year, I saw him and he said that he wished I was still living with his daughter.  I don't think she felt the same way he did.  I never put anything away in our room and would turn on the light late at night to study.  It drove her crazy.

On Mother's Day weekend, Mrs. Tevis, my mother, my roommate and I went out to dinner and as I recall, we had a very nice evening.  I did get in touch with Walter's daughter about 12 years ago. We haven't really stayed in touch that much.  Watching her talk about her father with more enthusiasm than when she was 18 made me very happy.  So, since the documentary, we connected and even though we are in different cities, we will try and see each other very soon

Right before Christmas break, Walter took his daughter and I out to lunch.  I just recall his humor and kindness.

BELLA

     When I moved in with my friend Paul in 2012, I was so excited to be able to live in his beautiful home.  What I didn't expect was to fall in love with his dog, Bella.  I had met her a few times when I went to visit with my best friend, Paul's girlfriend, Barbara and I found her annoying more than anything.  I loved pugs but she barked a lot and got underfoot too much.  Then I moved in and my main concern was starting radiation treatments.  Due to a spinal cord injury in 1980, I walk with a crutch and wear braces up to my knees and having Bella around was a little difficult especially with Paul's hardwood floors.  Paul had built a suite upstairs for his son and family and when they left, I moved in and I was in heaven.  Paul and I shared the kitchen and Paul was as easy to get along with as anyone I had ever met.  He charged a very small amount for rent. After my first night there, I got up and went into my living room, sat on the leather couch that was left there,  and turned on my laptop.  I heard Bella run up the stairs and she ran into the living room, jumped on the couch and all over me.  After greeting me for all of 10 seconds, she ran back downstairs. This became our morning ritual.

One night Paul and I went out for something.  It might have been a movie with Barbara, I don't remember.  But we came home and I went up the stairs to go to bed.  It looked like Bella took a dump on Paul's rug in the hallway.  Then we went out another night and the same thing happened.  Paul felt that the rug must of had some sort of smell so he took it out on the deck,, sprayed it and cleaned it, leaving it to dry out in the sun.

Paul bought a small staircase to put in my bedroom so that when he stayed at Barbara's, she could sleep with me.  I figured she would sleep outside of the covers, because of the difficulty pugs have breathing.  But she would get completely under the covers, and snore very loudly.  Then when she would hear Paul come in the house the next morning, she would run downstairs, mostly because he gave her a treat when he got home.  But also, because she adored him.

Paul and I went out again one night and when we got home, I had found that Bella had climbed up the stairs, into my bed and taken another dump.  So, Paul put a gate up so she could not go up again.
Then I would wake up, get dressed and sometimes she would be waiting for me at the foot of the stairs and sometimes she would be in Paul's office asleep in her bed while he played or worked on his computer. Other times she would be in Paul's bed snoring.  He would make the bed with her still in it, and it just looked like a loaf of bread that snored.

My cousin Lowy came to visit me.  Lowy is so sweet but also very funny. We sat on the deck and chatted while Bella was out and Bella laid down and Lowy mentioned that Bella looked like a piggy and the name stuck.  I realized that this is not a nice thing to call a doggie but she didn't seem to mind.  When workers came to work on the house or do some leaf blowing, she would be so excited to see them.  They knew where her Snausages were, and they'd go into the laundry room and give a few to her.

About a year and a half of me moving in, Paul's melanoma had spread to his lungs and I fell outside and broke my hip.  After surgery and a couple of weeks of rehab I came home and Paul was exhausted but ok.  Then it spread to his brain and his children and sister came home to help.  I wasn't much help at this time.  I was using a walker and getting physical therapy.  I was not to go anywhere except physical therapy and after a while I could go and do errands.  Paul died very quickly and after about a week, his family left, and I was alone with Piggy.  I slept in an extra room in the downstairs bedroom, and Bella slept on the left side of me, the side that wasn't broken.  I couldn't sleep on my side at the time or my stomach, so I laid very still in the bed.  I noticed I was talking in my sleep when I was in the hospital.  I know this because I kept waking myself up.  In my dream, I would be having a conversation with someone and out loud I would say something like, "I don't know.  What do you think?"  So now that I was home I would do the same thing.  Only this time, Bella/aka Piggy would respond.  Her snores would get louder or she'd make a cooing sound to me or a new sound I hadn't heard before.  Paul's children graciously let me stay at the house until my hip healed.  Friends and family took me to physical therapy, grocery shopping and out to eat.  But Bella seemed to be the best support while I grieved Paul's passing.  Then the weather started changing and I felt safer to go out on my own.  Bella had a fenced in back yard but every time I opened the front door, she would get past me and run out.  Sometimes someone would get her for me. The family was so kind and said I could keep her when I moved but I soon realized that I couldn't handle her.  If I had a fenced in backyard, I might have been able to keep her, but having to walk her every day would be too much if I wasn't feeling good.  And I never know from day to day how I would feel.  So she moved to a family member's home who had a lot of land and a great love of animals. She was out of the state so I never got to visit her.  I think that was the last hard thing for me that year.  Paul's children were gracious and let me stay 6 months after Paul died until my hip healed.  Not having her to keep me company was heartbreaking but I was grateful she had a good home.  Her new owner posted some pictures on Facebook and sometimes a video.  She had a much better handle on Bella's spoiled behavior.   After a while I wrote the owner and she said Bella had passed away.  I was sad, but every time I think of her, I start to giggle.  She was a spoiled little girl, but she was very funny.  She reminded me of me.  I was a spoiled bratty kid, teen, young person.  But I am very funny.