The first time I saw a psychiatrist was while I was in rehab. I don’t remember much about him, except that he had dark curly hair and I liked to talk to him.
One incident stands out in my mind. I had just been home for the weekend. It must have been about this time of year, June, or perhaps May. I was discharged on July 13, so it was before that. My progress was going well, and if it weren’t for still needing practice with catheterizing myself I might have been discharged in early June. So they allowed, indeed encouraged, me to go home every weekend by the beginning of June. My home wasn’t exactly accessible yet, but by being there it did help my parents to see what I would need.
I don’t remember what happened over that weekend anymore, but whatever it was I was very upset. So, I asked to see the shrink, and was told that he would call me when he had time to see me. He had an office on the floor below the main floor, which had the bedrooms and PT, OT and nurse’s station. Sometimes I would meet with him alone, but often a social worker or nurse or some other person would sit in on the session. That day I specifically asked to meet with him alone.
Later that afternoon, I was called to go to a certain room, but it wasn’t his office. I entered, and the room was a small auditorium. The psychiatrist was sitting near the front of the room, essentially in a small stage area, and the seating area was full of perhaps 40 people. I wouldn’t be surprised if my memory exaggerates this, my image is of 3 rows of people with 10 – 15 each in them. Perhaps it was only 15 total? One thing for certain, it wasn’t a private meeting, and I was confused, hurt and furious all at the same time. The Dr. proceeded to ask me what was wrong, and why I had asked to see him, but I wouldn’t talk. I felt betrayed. He pressured me, and I started to cry. He pushed some more, and I started to yell that this wasn’t what I wanted, that I had asked for a private meeting, that there was no way I was going to talk at that moment. I held my own. And then he turned to talk to the audience, explaining that my outburst was good, healthy and normal, and evidence that I was psychologically strong and going to be ok despite what had happened to me. Then he let me go.
U of Penn’s rehab center is part of their hospital system, and thereby a teaching hospital. Good things and bad to this, you get the newest technology and techniques, but you also often have a crowd around the bedside and have to put up with doctors also being educators. I liked this actually, because when things were explained to the medical students, they were explained to me too. I didn’t like it on that one day.
Later he did call me into his office, and I did get to work out what was on my mind. I point blank refused to be on display again, and he honored that. I continued to like him, but I never quite trusted him totally again. Looking back, I find it interesting that I can’t remember the issues that were so difficult at home that I wanted support for, though I could guess. But I clearly remember that interview. And I believe that it actually was good for me, in an odd kind of way. His assessment was in the main, right! And it was good for me to hear him say that to other people. I was not going to let my injury/disability/victim status make me meek or a pushover. And I am much the same today, in that I pick my battles and strive for what is important to me, not by someone else’s definition of what I should find important.
He was not totally correct though, for some days I feel the scars I have very acutely. I look back at my blog entries and see that they are more about what is hard, different, annoying and just generally negative. My life isn’t all negative, but the way my disability has impacted it feels negative. In fact, I’m hard pressed to find a way that it’s been positive.
Over the years, I have seen 6 different therapists – for all kinds of reasons. Once in college because I was remembering some repressed childhood memories. Once in grad school because a year of group therapy was required to get the PhD. Once was marriage counseling when Ranjan and I had difficulties the first time, around 1989. And once was after Ranjan and I separated, 2001.
The longest stretch was on and off for 10 years with the same psychologist, starting in 1979. I had started grad school in September, and in October Ranjan went to Sri Lanka to be with his parents for a few months. He was going to come back in on a fiancé visa, and in the end he was away for 4 months. I was in a new town, San Diego, with no family, and the only friends I had were the other students I had just met, and Jim – who I knew from MIT but didn’t like much. It was really during that time that Jim and I became friends, though it was years later that we started the relationship that turned into love. That fall of 1979 I was alone for the first time – a single apartment, a car I had just figured out how to manage with my wheelchair, financially independent and responsible. One day I realized that I was afraid to go out at night, or even to open the curtain to look out. My plants needed the morning sun, so I wanted to open the curtain in the living room before going to bed, so that even if I slept late they wouldn’t suffer. But I couldn’t open the curtain, and had a panic attack, and started therapy within a couple of weeks.
The psychiatrist at Penn might have said this was a strength, that I knew I needed help and reached out for it before it was debilitating. Perhaps he’s right, but it was scary all the same. The therapist I found was good for me, and I stayed with her for the better part of 10 years. She’s the one who helped me see that the recurring dreams I had of a cat with a bloody necktie were really out-of-body near-death experiences. She had me draw the image (I still have it) and the dreams stopped.
However, most of the time I was in therapy, with all the various therapists, the topics I worked on were related to my childhood. Like the majority of psych students, I was in grad school to figure out my own dysfunctional family. It wasn’t till I was in therapy after my marriage fell apart, that the therapist and I talked about what diagnosis I should have. I was in therapy then for more situational reasons, to help me get through a bad patch of time. I spent way too much of my time crying and had to find a way through it. But for insurance purposes I had to have a diagnosis, and my quick reaction was anxiety disorder, or something along those lines – that’s what I’d been given before. This therapist suggested post traumatic stress disorder, and after talking about it, we concluded that it fit. There are still some things I do that would qualify for a PTSD symptom. I cannot sleep in a public place for example, and the summer Stephen biked across the country sleeping in public parks caused me no end of anxiety.
The therapist I saw for so many years did say something to the effect that we hadn’t really delved into issues related to the shooting, or my disability. I dismissed her concern, saying that I had that part of my life under control. And then my last therapist in 2001 brought it to the front again, reminding me that I’d heard those words before.
Today I find myself wondering, if perhaps I should be back in therapy one more time. The fact that I need to write these blog notes means something. The good news is that I’m not thinking of therapy because of a panic attack, or waking up crying, or some current event in my life.
For me though, therapy has always been a huge commitment, and makes me moody and hard to be with. Difficult memories would surface, and I’d brood on them all week. If I feel a need to write now, it will double, and the frustration I have when I don’t have time to write will double too. I’ll have even more ‘brain chatter’ when I am trying to fall asleep, and be more likely to ‘sleep in’ till noon. I’m really sleeping till 10 (which is bad enough), but then stay in bed for another hour or 2 to think about my dreams or just stay cocooned in the warm bed, feeling safe, and thinking about whatever comes to mind.
I couldn’t pamper myself like that every day of all the years while I was in therapy! Some of those years I had grad school, and some I had little babies to care for. Some years I was working. I never had a time when I totally shut down, and didn’t do the tasks my life required, but there were times when I would have liked to. And when I could write, brood, sleep in or shut down I did. My life now is more open than it’s ever been. The idea of giving in to that exploration is both appealing and scary.
Where am I now? What do I need?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
ups and downs
It’s been a busy week. Here it is Friday night, a quiet evening with Jim at Chess, and I’ve spent most of it paying bills and taking care of household business. It’s just taken me all week to get through this stuff bit by bit.
Granted not all of the activities were ‘work’. This afternoon I spent with friends and went out to a movie.
Low lights:
1 – wrist pain as a result of strain at dance class, but already getting better 3 days later
2 – low sleep as a result of wrist and getting up early for cat medicine, which thankfully is over! Jasper sees the vet next week and then we’ll know for sure if he’s healed ok.
3 – 3 hrs at dealer today to get spring in Chair Topper fixed, and to adjust hand controls, which now make car feel different (I’ll get used to it) Note that it took 6 business days for part to arrive. I’ll have to go back again with the new wheelchair to make sure it fits up there too, could need adjustment
4 – an awful lot of bills and paperwork to do, including form for Jim’s unclaimed CA funds
5 – hair cut and color appointment – as much as I love the woman who cuts my hair, I hate those 2 hour appointments, but I like the way I look
High lights;
1 – Padres won on Monday, and fireworks!
2 – Humane Society gave me a new project to do, organizing the photos for their Calendar contest
3 – 20+ of our favorite vacation photos are up on the walls, looking beautiful
4 – talked to Stephen on the phone one night
5 – saw the movie Babies, very cute and enjoyed being with friends
6 – knowing new wheelchair is being made, to arrive June 14, can’t believe it
7 – last but not least, a thank you to AARP’s magazine for the website – www.disableddiscounts.com . AARP has come through with some interesting money saving tips before, and their notes about this site interested me. There’s a fee, $25 for their service, which initially made me skeptical. But I do trust AARP to some degree, so I signed up. There may not be much on the site that will apply to me, but I’ve already found one hit that will more than pay for that $25 fee. Apparently SDG&E has a program for an increased medical baseline due to medical conditions, and paraplegia is on the list. Living near the coast this isn’t quite the issue it would be inland, but I could save some money. And I know others who would definitely save money. More later, once I’ve gone through the whole website.
And that was my week! In the balance, busy, but not bad.
Granted not all of the activities were ‘work’. This afternoon I spent with friends and went out to a movie.
Low lights:
1 – wrist pain as a result of strain at dance class, but already getting better 3 days later
2 – low sleep as a result of wrist and getting up early for cat medicine, which thankfully is over! Jasper sees the vet next week and then we’ll know for sure if he’s healed ok.
3 – 3 hrs at dealer today to get spring in Chair Topper fixed, and to adjust hand controls, which now make car feel different (I’ll get used to it) Note that it took 6 business days for part to arrive. I’ll have to go back again with the new wheelchair to make sure it fits up there too, could need adjustment
4 – an awful lot of bills and paperwork to do, including form for Jim’s unclaimed CA funds
5 – hair cut and color appointment – as much as I love the woman who cuts my hair, I hate those 2 hour appointments, but I like the way I look
High lights;
1 – Padres won on Monday, and fireworks!
2 – Humane Society gave me a new project to do, organizing the photos for their Calendar contest
3 – 20+ of our favorite vacation photos are up on the walls, looking beautiful
4 – talked to Stephen on the phone one night
5 – saw the movie Babies, very cute and enjoyed being with friends
6 – knowing new wheelchair is being made, to arrive June 14, can’t believe it
7 – last but not least, a thank you to AARP’s magazine for the website – www.disableddiscounts.com . AARP has come through with some interesting money saving tips before, and their notes about this site interested me. There’s a fee, $25 for their service, which initially made me skeptical. But I do trust AARP to some degree, so I signed up. There may not be much on the site that will apply to me, but I’ve already found one hit that will more than pay for that $25 fee. Apparently SDG&E has a program for an increased medical baseline due to medical conditions, and paraplegia is on the list. Living near the coast this isn’t quite the issue it would be inland, but I could save some money. And I know others who would definitely save money. More later, once I’ve gone through the whole website.
And that was my week! In the balance, busy, but not bad.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Wheelchair Dancing
FLASH BULLETIN – THIS NEWS JUST IN! The ETA of my new chair is June 14! Don’t expect to see me in the new chair that night though. Some modifications will have to be done to it, then I have to see if it fits in my Chair Topper ok, might need a modification there too. But hopefully by the end of the month.
I was never much of a dancer. As a young child I preferred school and reading, summer art classes or math classes, even playing music over sports or dance. As a teen I liked rock and roll like most girls, but I really liked square dancing and folk dancing most. During the summer, when the nights were warm, a large group of people would gather in the large courtyard of the Philadelphia Art Museum. Everyone would get into a large circle, holding hands, and then an announcer would start the music and call out instructions. Every other person would go one direction, and their partners would go the other. It had to be several hundred people. I was allowed to go with friends once in a while, if their parents were going too. It was exhilarating to be in such a crowd, with the music so exotic. I believe the folk dances were from all over the world. I’d be with my friend, then we’d go different directions, and wonder when we’d get back together again. Sadly, one year a young couple was attacked by a gang right after a summer folk dance, the young woman was raped and murdered while her boyfriend was forced to watch. And so the dances were discontinued. There wasn’t enough security, or a good way to provide it in such an open space.
I also liked square dancing. As a family we’d occasionally go on a summer vacation someplace like West Virginia, and stay at a lodge that would have square dancing. This was harder than the folk dancing, more complicated, but not impossible to learn. It wasn’t out in the open, like the folk dancing, but set up in barns or lodges.
In 7th and 8th grades the girls at my school (a small private girls’ school in Chestnut Hill Philadelphia) would be invited along with students from other local private schools, to attend dance classes at our nearby Cricket Club. The dances learned were things like the waltz and fox trot. I liked these too, but my interest then was more towards getting to know the boys than the dances themselves.
All of these experiences were pre-injury for me. Not long after my injury my class had its Junior Prom. I asked a childhood friend of mine to go (remember that I went to a girls’ school, so we all had to find our own dates) and I enticed him not by saying he and I would have fun together, and certainly not with the idea of dancing with me – but by saying he would meet other girls. I didn’t go to the Senior Prom.
I’d go to dance parties in college, but I stayed in the sidelines, even for something as free form as rock and roll, and no one tried to nudge me out of it too hard. I’m sure the words “leave me alone” were written on my forehead. Sometimes I’d help with serving drinks or taking tickets. I liked being there and was cheerful and happy, but didn’t feel comfortable wiggling my body around in ways that felt uncoordinated to me. I was pretty self conscious about my body pre-injury as it was, must be why I liked the dances with specific steps and rules, and it was only worse later.
In grad school I remember one painful experience of going to a bar with a dance floor in around 1980, with some grad school friends. My first husband, then fiancé, was out of the country for 4 months and I had just started grad school and was trying a) not to be lonely and b) to make friends. I tagged along with this friend who wanted to go dancing. Honestly, I think she wanted a “home base” so that if she didn’t dance, she’d have company (me) and if she did she’d have an excuse to drop someone because she had to get back to her friend (me). It was assumed I wouldn’t dance. So, while she was dancing one time, and I’m sitting alone, a man came over to talk to me. OK, I’m flattered, and then he said, “You’re too pretty to be in a wheelchair.” This of course took a couple of tries to get across, noisy room and all, and I was pretty surprised (or why else would I remember this 30 years later). We talked a bit, about why I was in my wheelchair, and it was ok. He wasn’t creepy. And my friend did come back. But, it was the last time I went to a bar like that, meaning going to a bar either with the intention myself or the intention of others with me, to be looking for a pickup. In fact I’ve been to very few dances other than weddings since.
So, it was with some reserve that I allowed a friend of mine who uses a wheelchair to talk me into going to some wheelchair ballroom dancing classes. And though they haven’t been perfect, I have found that they’ve been enjoyable – most of the time. I have to qualify this, because yesterday’s class has to be my last one for a while. I hurt my wrist during the class, and with the class set up as it is, I can’t see how it won’t happen again. That perhaps deserves an explanation – suffice it to say that being a group class it would be hard for me to tailor the movements I do to pamper my wrist and avoid certain movements. Last night I felt like I had set my wrist healing back 2 months, that’s how badly it was hurting. Today I’m doing better, but taking meds, so it’s hard to know how injured I am still. But overall, it’s a fun feeling being out with a partner, moving around the dance floor.
I have to give Beverly Weurding a lot of credit. Only 2 years ago, she conceived of this idea of doing wheelchair dancing, and went looking for a dance instructor. By wheelchair dancing I mean an adapted ballroom or Latin dancing – waltz, foxtrot, rumba, salsa, tango…. Within a year she had found an instructor, a couple of venues, funding and interested participants and volunteer partners. In San Diego, there are now 2 places holding classes once a week, and for anyone who uses a wheelchair it’s FREE, with enough volunteers to go around. That’s pretty amazing, and I give Beverly all the credit.
The classes are in 6 or 8 week sessions, and last year I went to 2 sessions. The first one was so crowded – about 30 wheelchairs with able-bodied partners. I was lucky and got matched up with a very nice gentleman for the whole session. He liked to dance in general and saw an ad in the paper for these classes, and thought it might be a nice thing to do to volunteer as a partner for people in wheelchairs.
This first class was really too many people, and so another venue was found so that 2 months later the wheelchair dancing class was offered at 2 venues, and both classes were less crowded. The second series of classes I attended had about 8 wheelchairs, and so the instruction was better, and instead of having one partner the whole time, we rotated partners about every 5 minutes. We learned the waltz, the rumba, and the cha-cha.
Then I missed a few sessions of classes – because of my wrist, and then because I would miss too many lessons because of the Antarctica trip. A session just started last week, and I attended 2 classes of the 8 scheduled. Perhaps I’ll get back later in the season, but right now I can’t predict. My wrist has to heal again.
I will miss these classes, but at the same time, it isn’t that disappointing either. I will never be athletic, or want to dance competitively. I don’t have a partner to dance with emotionally. What’s left is dancing for exercise and companionship, and that’s enough for me, but not so much I’ll cry if I miss it. It is good exercise – more than you’d expect. You have to hold your arms up perpendicular to your shoulders, for the better part of an hour, and that takes energy. And moving your chair around for that hour lesson is definitely exercise over what I might be doing at home reading or spending time on the computer. I do exercises at home because I have to, not because I enjoy them. So anything that makes exercises more fun is worth doing!
You know, I would really really like to be able to dance, with my own special partner. I watch the couples dancing on the cruise ships, usually there’s a lounge with a swing band playing for an hour before dinner. Often there are 2 or 3 couples who get up on the dance floor and look so beautiful moving around. They look sexy and graceful. I wish I could be them! I think what appeals to me is the idea of a couple – people who know each other, are connected, and can move as one. I’m never going to get this from these dance classes. And I’m never going to get Jim out on a dance floor. I’m not upset with him about this, that’s just who he is, and I knew this way before we married.
Actually just like one might accept Jim for never wanting to dance, it would be good if people could accept the same variety in people with disabilities. Except that for wheelchair users, it’s the reverse – accepting those who want to dance. What if people in wheelchairs could go to dances – in high school, college, bars, weddings, wherever and be asked to dance just like anyone else? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I think 2 things have to happen first – those in wheelchairs have to have more confidence and self respect, and those who might dance with them have to have a little courage, and be willing to go with the flow and adapt.
You should see the wheelchair dancing. At a demo I went to recently, 3 women danced with the dance teacher (waltz, rumba and salsa), and it really is elegant and beautiful to watch. If you go on the internet and google “wheelchair dancing”, you can see some very amazing teams at international competitions, even doing the tango! Some have pairs of wheelchairs, and not a 1 wheelchair plus 1 able-bodied couple. We’re not there yet, at least not in San Diego, and I suspect not in the US in general. But maybe one day. If you want to see some of the San Diego people try:
http://www.absolutelydancesport.com/page21/page21.html
This blog has been a tough one to write. I think this was draft number 4. I can’t praise Beverly enough, and I think it’s fantastic that she’s done this wonderful thing of bringing dancing to people with wheelchairs in San Diego. I truly hope this movement grows and succeeds. It’s not perfect yet, but I’m sure with time, and the energy of both Beverly and the instructor, William Valencia, eventually they will get everything right. I hate to say anything negative about the classes at all! I’m not sure the class is right for me, in part because I hurt myself yesterday, and in part because I don’t think of myself as a dancer. But it is fun, and I have no doubt it’s good for many people.
I was never much of a dancer. As a young child I preferred school and reading, summer art classes or math classes, even playing music over sports or dance. As a teen I liked rock and roll like most girls, but I really liked square dancing and folk dancing most. During the summer, when the nights were warm, a large group of people would gather in the large courtyard of the Philadelphia Art Museum. Everyone would get into a large circle, holding hands, and then an announcer would start the music and call out instructions. Every other person would go one direction, and their partners would go the other. It had to be several hundred people. I was allowed to go with friends once in a while, if their parents were going too. It was exhilarating to be in such a crowd, with the music so exotic. I believe the folk dances were from all over the world. I’d be with my friend, then we’d go different directions, and wonder when we’d get back together again. Sadly, one year a young couple was attacked by a gang right after a summer folk dance, the young woman was raped and murdered while her boyfriend was forced to watch. And so the dances were discontinued. There wasn’t enough security, or a good way to provide it in such an open space.
I also liked square dancing. As a family we’d occasionally go on a summer vacation someplace like West Virginia, and stay at a lodge that would have square dancing. This was harder than the folk dancing, more complicated, but not impossible to learn. It wasn’t out in the open, like the folk dancing, but set up in barns or lodges.
In 7th and 8th grades the girls at my school (a small private girls’ school in Chestnut Hill Philadelphia) would be invited along with students from other local private schools, to attend dance classes at our nearby Cricket Club. The dances learned were things like the waltz and fox trot. I liked these too, but my interest then was more towards getting to know the boys than the dances themselves.
All of these experiences were pre-injury for me. Not long after my injury my class had its Junior Prom. I asked a childhood friend of mine to go (remember that I went to a girls’ school, so we all had to find our own dates) and I enticed him not by saying he and I would have fun together, and certainly not with the idea of dancing with me – but by saying he would meet other girls. I didn’t go to the Senior Prom.
I’d go to dance parties in college, but I stayed in the sidelines, even for something as free form as rock and roll, and no one tried to nudge me out of it too hard. I’m sure the words “leave me alone” were written on my forehead. Sometimes I’d help with serving drinks or taking tickets. I liked being there and was cheerful and happy, but didn’t feel comfortable wiggling my body around in ways that felt uncoordinated to me. I was pretty self conscious about my body pre-injury as it was, must be why I liked the dances with specific steps and rules, and it was only worse later.
In grad school I remember one painful experience of going to a bar with a dance floor in around 1980, with some grad school friends. My first husband, then fiancé, was out of the country for 4 months and I had just started grad school and was trying a) not to be lonely and b) to make friends. I tagged along with this friend who wanted to go dancing. Honestly, I think she wanted a “home base” so that if she didn’t dance, she’d have company (me) and if she did she’d have an excuse to drop someone because she had to get back to her friend (me). It was assumed I wouldn’t dance. So, while she was dancing one time, and I’m sitting alone, a man came over to talk to me. OK, I’m flattered, and then he said, “You’re too pretty to be in a wheelchair.” This of course took a couple of tries to get across, noisy room and all, and I was pretty surprised (or why else would I remember this 30 years later). We talked a bit, about why I was in my wheelchair, and it was ok. He wasn’t creepy. And my friend did come back. But, it was the last time I went to a bar like that, meaning going to a bar either with the intention myself or the intention of others with me, to be looking for a pickup. In fact I’ve been to very few dances other than weddings since.
So, it was with some reserve that I allowed a friend of mine who uses a wheelchair to talk me into going to some wheelchair ballroom dancing classes. And though they haven’t been perfect, I have found that they’ve been enjoyable – most of the time. I have to qualify this, because yesterday’s class has to be my last one for a while. I hurt my wrist during the class, and with the class set up as it is, I can’t see how it won’t happen again. That perhaps deserves an explanation – suffice it to say that being a group class it would be hard for me to tailor the movements I do to pamper my wrist and avoid certain movements. Last night I felt like I had set my wrist healing back 2 months, that’s how badly it was hurting. Today I’m doing better, but taking meds, so it’s hard to know how injured I am still. But overall, it’s a fun feeling being out with a partner, moving around the dance floor.
I have to give Beverly Weurding a lot of credit. Only 2 years ago, she conceived of this idea of doing wheelchair dancing, and went looking for a dance instructor. By wheelchair dancing I mean an adapted ballroom or Latin dancing – waltz, foxtrot, rumba, salsa, tango…. Within a year she had found an instructor, a couple of venues, funding and interested participants and volunteer partners. In San Diego, there are now 2 places holding classes once a week, and for anyone who uses a wheelchair it’s FREE, with enough volunteers to go around. That’s pretty amazing, and I give Beverly all the credit.
The classes are in 6 or 8 week sessions, and last year I went to 2 sessions. The first one was so crowded – about 30 wheelchairs with able-bodied partners. I was lucky and got matched up with a very nice gentleman for the whole session. He liked to dance in general and saw an ad in the paper for these classes, and thought it might be a nice thing to do to volunteer as a partner for people in wheelchairs.
This first class was really too many people, and so another venue was found so that 2 months later the wheelchair dancing class was offered at 2 venues, and both classes were less crowded. The second series of classes I attended had about 8 wheelchairs, and so the instruction was better, and instead of having one partner the whole time, we rotated partners about every 5 minutes. We learned the waltz, the rumba, and the cha-cha.
Then I missed a few sessions of classes – because of my wrist, and then because I would miss too many lessons because of the Antarctica trip. A session just started last week, and I attended 2 classes of the 8 scheduled. Perhaps I’ll get back later in the season, but right now I can’t predict. My wrist has to heal again.
I will miss these classes, but at the same time, it isn’t that disappointing either. I will never be athletic, or want to dance competitively. I don’t have a partner to dance with emotionally. What’s left is dancing for exercise and companionship, and that’s enough for me, but not so much I’ll cry if I miss it. It is good exercise – more than you’d expect. You have to hold your arms up perpendicular to your shoulders, for the better part of an hour, and that takes energy. And moving your chair around for that hour lesson is definitely exercise over what I might be doing at home reading or spending time on the computer. I do exercises at home because I have to, not because I enjoy them. So anything that makes exercises more fun is worth doing!
You know, I would really really like to be able to dance, with my own special partner. I watch the couples dancing on the cruise ships, usually there’s a lounge with a swing band playing for an hour before dinner. Often there are 2 or 3 couples who get up on the dance floor and look so beautiful moving around. They look sexy and graceful. I wish I could be them! I think what appeals to me is the idea of a couple – people who know each other, are connected, and can move as one. I’m never going to get this from these dance classes. And I’m never going to get Jim out on a dance floor. I’m not upset with him about this, that’s just who he is, and I knew this way before we married.
Actually just like one might accept Jim for never wanting to dance, it would be good if people could accept the same variety in people with disabilities. Except that for wheelchair users, it’s the reverse – accepting those who want to dance. What if people in wheelchairs could go to dances – in high school, college, bars, weddings, wherever and be asked to dance just like anyone else? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I think 2 things have to happen first – those in wheelchairs have to have more confidence and self respect, and those who might dance with them have to have a little courage, and be willing to go with the flow and adapt.
You should see the wheelchair dancing. At a demo I went to recently, 3 women danced with the dance teacher (waltz, rumba and salsa), and it really is elegant and beautiful to watch. If you go on the internet and google “wheelchair dancing”, you can see some very amazing teams at international competitions, even doing the tango! Some have pairs of wheelchairs, and not a 1 wheelchair plus 1 able-bodied couple. We’re not there yet, at least not in San Diego, and I suspect not in the US in general. But maybe one day. If you want to see some of the San Diego people try:
http://www.absolutelydancesport.com/page21/page21.html
This blog has been a tough one to write. I think this was draft number 4. I can’t praise Beverly enough, and I think it’s fantastic that she’s done this wonderful thing of bringing dancing to people with wheelchairs in San Diego. I truly hope this movement grows and succeeds. It’s not perfect yet, but I’m sure with time, and the energy of both Beverly and the instructor, William Valencia, eventually they will get everything right. I hate to say anything negative about the classes at all! I’m not sure the class is right for me, in part because I hurt myself yesterday, and in part because I don’t think of myself as a dancer. But it is fun, and I have no doubt it’s good for many people.
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