"Let it ride..."

I recently wrote a blog piece about acceptance. 

Within a day or so, another "A" word come to mind -- Adaptation. 

Every living thing has to adapt. 

As I pondered my current plight of how difficult walking is for me these days... 

Actually, walking has been difficult for over 10 years. But now, it's to the point where I simply don't have the umph to push through and walk beyond around a quarter-mile; it is painstakingly laborious. I used to love to walk and hike. Over the years after the onset of polyradiculitis and having to give up walking more and more, I discovered I could ride a bike. So, I pedaled; for over eight years I rode and rode and rode and rode. Rail trails, greenways, and a few small mountain roads conducive for bicycles.

Then, beginning in 2022, due to having to give up my epidurals and the relief they provided, I could no longer bike outside.

So, I walked, as best I could until it too became so laborious that I could no longer do it for exercise.

I miss the woods and trails, the connection they provided me...

Last week as I pondered my current circumstance and the word adaptation, I asked, What can I do next? How can get out of this isolation? What can I do to get outside again? 

What about a power chair, like the Hoveround Mom used to have? 

Wow. I could "stroll" the neighborhood. Visit with my friend William who panhandles and makes art down on the corner. I could visit stores, not to buy anything necessarily, but just to be out and about. 

I could get a motorized rack to carry the Hoveround to greenways and even some rail trails. 

What could I name it? "Albert," after Daddy. (Dad's name was Albert.) His wheelchair took him on many adventures. And he used to smoke Prince Albert tobacco in his pipe. How about "Sir Albert?" Sir Albert it is. 

I got an image of me in my power chair, wearing my biking helmet and gloves, with a triangular flag on a long pole like Dad used to have on his surrey. I'd be Mario Andretti in my power chair. Lol. As I pondered the idea, I felt a sense of freedom and independence.

But then the next day came... 

As I looked up power chairs, I wasn't "feeling" it. 

Okay. So, if not that, then what? 

The next day as I was driving the hour-plus trip to one of my doctors, Bachman Turner Overdrive began singing "Let it ride," through Sir Edward the Explorer's speakers... 

"Try, try, try, Let it ride," I sang the chorus and could feel it deep into my very bones... 

Wow. I gotta play that again... 

So, I did; nine times...

As I sang the chorus over and over and over (times 3) with BTO, memories flowed...

 

Dynamite, a Shetland pony, my first... 

Princess, my second pony... 

Black Eagle, a Welsh pony, my third... 

Little Smokey, a Tennesse walker whom I use to climb upon using a rope ladder to get up onto the saddle until I was tall enough to reach the stirrups... 

Big Smokey, Little Smokey's dad... 

Georgia Girl, Jetstream, Rambler... 

Horses and ponies were my life for nine years; I used to even ride in the mornings before school... 

So many memories...

What about horses Carol? 

You could call the Ogburns. If they can't help, maybe they know of someone who can? 

I can't saddle the horse; my arms can't do that work...

But I think I could bridle the horse...

I'll have to have help mounting and dismounting...

But once on its back, I could ride...  

I doubt my arms and hands would be able to clean their hooves... 

But I could groom their coats...

And I'd feel connection...

Wow. Wow. Maybe, maybe, maybe...

Within two days I made an appointment with a therapeutic riding center...
I go for a tour and evaluation this upcoming week... 

Oh, how I pray that I qualify... 

~*~

BTO with Let It Ride...

All that really applies to my circumstance are the words, "Let it ride"...

So many times on our riding excursions, we'd allow the horse/pony free reign to make the decision as to how to best navigate certain hills and woods...

We would, "Let 'em ride..."

HAARD...

I wrote the following on November 14th. 

I'm hesitant to click publish. Why? 

I don't want to misrepresent myself... 

The piece may come across as a bunch of insubstantial muddle...

As clear and thin as muddy water...

And maybe that's okay...

Maybe that's a good reason to click publish...

~*~

11/14/24

So how did I feel when I learned that Trump had again won the US presidency?

Maybe I should start with what I did not feel.

I did not feel disgust or anxiety or shock.

Perhaps disappointment?

But... I can't even say I felt disappointment.

I felt more like someone who, through a series of explorations, reaches the acceptance phase of living with a rare, incurable disease.  

With an incurable diagnosis, after the initial shock, at some point, comes acceptance, resolve, determination and adaptation. 

Acceptance for what is and what may come.

Resolve to do one's best despite the diagnosis or prognosis.

Determination to accept and live each day, each moment, as it unfolds.

Adaptation as one finds a new way to function in their new abnormal-normal life.

I'll call it AARD. (Hmmm...if I add an H for Human, it becomes HAARD. Ain't that the truth?) Depending on the length and severity of symptoms, the afflicted goes through AARD multiple times with ever widening and deeper levels.

One learns to adapt and live with their changing limitations; to navigate the physical-emotional-mental roller coaster of symptoms, remedies, laborious self-care, appointments, ups and downs, twists and turns, and isolation.

One learns to mourn and grieve their losses, often alone in the privacy of their own world.

If the person is fortunate, they have one or two confidantes whom they can trust to be with them through their various levels of grief and acceptance.

And one learns to find joy, despite their circumstance.

To find silver linings.

To discover how to flip a dire circumstance (without bypassing the reality) into something meaningful, finding something to hang on to, something to help ground them, to help find peace with it all without allowing the condition to become one's full identity. It can be a huge undertaking with circumstances that the disabled did not consciously choose. (Again, I think of Dad who lived over 12 years as a quadriplegic.)

Like others, I have lived this up close and personal. not only in my own life, but in others for whom I have cared, human and non-human -- from quadriplegia to blindness. I penned a prose recently, endeavoring to relay a bird's eye view of what one woman has felt in her journey to acceptance. That woman is me. 

This feeling of accepting the presidential election news like an incurable disease wasn't about Trump himself, but more about our society with so many of us trapped in an insular loop of rationalization, justification, true believerism; where opinions and beliefs beyond one's own are judged as wrong, evil, demonic. I think I think that this incurable disease is the narcissistic side of our human condition depicted by traits such as lust, greed, arrogance, self-righteousness.

I, like others, have lived this also. I once "knew that I knew that I knew" the truth. I didn't just believe, I knew that "the Bible was the revealed Word and Will of God." I knew that The Way was the genuine "household of God" teaching the "rightly divided Word," the only accurate interpretation of the Bible. 

Then that which I had known as absolute and inerrant, shattered.
And I began to puzzle back together the shattered pieces to form a new vase.  (Poem: Shattered Pieces)

From my experience, one of the main characteristics of cultic thinking is limited choice.

It's what I discovered not only in a religious cult but also in the anti-cult movement.

And I learned that that cultic behavior is human behavior which happens on a continuum. 

We all have biases.

So, what about you Carol?

Where are you trapped?

I feel trapped in a crippled body which (figuratively) climbs a mountain every day to perform the simplest of tasks such as clothing and feeding oneself, making the bed, and squeezing a toothpaste tube,...

I feel trapped in a continual repetition of levels of AARD, over and over and over, like Groundhog Day...

Does that mean that I am trapped in the tribe of the disabled, though I rarely communicate with others in that tribe? I rarely communicate with others in general. Engaging takes energy that I seldom have. ( A prose from 2021: Bubbles of isolation into sacredness...)

It seems, through much of my life, I have been/am often in the minority.

Polyradiculitis is no exception.

In the over 13 years that I've lived with this condition, I've only met one other person who has the same. 

But they have it only on one side of their body affecting only one arm.

I have it on both sides affecting all four limbs and extremities, my back, my neck, my jaws, and more. 

Even though it determines my choices in my day-to-day life, polyradiculitis is not my identity (or at least I don't want it to be)...

This is just my life...

Given to me to live...

One day, one moment, one circumstance at a time, with its continual adaptations...

Thus far, it's been a rich, full, ever-learning, and sometimes wild ride...

~*~

Acceptance...

How does one feel when given the news that she has a rare, incurable disease?

First, there is puzzlement and shock which might be mixed with relief, if she's been searching for answers for months or years.

Then, grit and determination.

Then, loss and grief.

Then, acceptance.

Acceptance is the lynchpin. 
That which keeps the wheel on the axle, going round and round, to carry the weight of the wagon to its next destination.

Acceptance flips the initial shock, determination, grief.

With acceptance comes resolve.

Determination returns, but not so lofty as before.

Loss and grief again follow, deeper than the initial round.

Which brings another layer of acceptance.

Acceptance that she can no longer participate like she once could.

She recounts her life, weighing its worth.

What, of merit, has she accomplished?

When she struggles to find value in real time due to her disabled circumstance, her heart recalls its first love -- the mountains, the woods, the open sky, the earth and its wonders.

And her heart is comforted.

For she has loved Gaia, and Gaia has loved her. 

Even if I can never again be with the trails I love so dearly, I am gifted with rich memories that bring me joy, that lift my confidence, that bring me peace.

And there is human motherhood, of which I am most proud, my children.

I recently attended a Zoom gathering.

I felt seen. I felt comfortable in my own skin.

Oh girl, wouldn't it be great to feel that way every day?

But, that's not how skin works. 

~*~

Enigma with Return to Innocence...

~*~

11/17/24

A few days after penning Acceptance, another "A" word came to mind: adaptation...

Perhaps it is the lynchpin instead of acceptance...

~*~