Bodies Are a Privilege (Even When Hit By Buses)
I couldn’t move the day after our shows.
I hopped to the bathroom. I hopped back. My love asked my on a date - A DATE!!!!- and we haven’t done anything-of-the-sort in months… and I had to turn him down because I didn’t have a mobility resource to get me from door to Agora [coffee] without imitating Harvey the bunny… without coveted anonymity.
“The cane didn’t help even right after surgery,” I said, like I’ve said 7 million times in the last 7 weeks, “Maybe if I had a stronger upper body it would work?” I watched videos. A lot of them. They said don’t use a cane like House (who does not have his MD in therapeutic cane walking).
“That kind of cane looks like it would have actually worked for me,” I said, watching the newest Shazam movie… seeing the elbow hold for support. “You want a Polio cane?” was the reply.
If there was less shame around mobility devices or which work better for which person or even the freedom to use one when you need it and not when you don’t… maybe I’d have gone on the date. Instead I thought: “I just danced an extremely hard show all weekend… I can’t use a cane the next day”, as if that logic - the implicit shame and ableism rich within it - made sense.
It wasn’t the liver-pancreas situation causing the surge - (“But it could be all the inflammation from THAT making the already inflamed nerves from surgery worse?” my brain chimes in)- but it was unfortunate… and unfortunately worth it. I’ve been researching a different female writer each day and the day’s greatmind was María Sabina. I wasn’t sure if her healing associations or or pugilistic ‘penultilism’ towards bouncing back felt ironic… or aspirational. (I chose the latter.)
I think most of us wake up from a weekend of shows feeling like we got hit by a bus. We bewitch our nightly seances with Tiger Balm. We whisper things like, “I’m sorry about the smell” as we make our friend’s eyes water while standing too close to them on stage; a Vix vapor’d vanquish of what we can’t actually make go away. We do IMPOSSIBLE things with little to no support - no massage therapists or PT or free pointe shoes for we smaller-town professionals- and then wonder why we can barely hobble to our second and third jobs. Dancers would snort Epsom if it’d make a difference.
“Should I just retire?!” I say to my best friend the next day; All drama but utter sincerity (the two can co-exist). “Will everyone see me and go: ‘Ew she is so embarrassing. She can’t keep up’.” I have the type of best friend who would- with absolute throat slitting honesty - say “yes” if she felt it it to be truth.
“I could not even see which side you had surgery on,” she said, “And I was looking. You are a badass and better than f*cking Patrick Mahomes with his ankle he had surgery on, then played in the superbowl. He let it show he was in pain. So yeah. Hi.” She’s from Boston and says “wicked” a lot so I assume this turncoat but still-loyal sporting reference is very flattering. My throat, for now, is un-slit… and I’ll take it.
But my “shank less pointe shoes”- as my husband jokes - can’t be helping. Tissue paper suggestions of the structure they should be. My Gaynors are the same pair given in 2017 or 2019- no more, no less- and have cracked open so far you can see the spotty remains of plastic. I’ve paid for 3 pairs since, and each has been so mis-sized that I’ve cried, eaten the bill (figuratively) and given up (literally). Whether small or large towns, some pros just can’t gamble $200 away that way.
Resources are a privilege. Bodies are a privilege (even when hit by buses). So is dancing… no more, no less.
All drama, utter sincerity. (The two can co-exist.)
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