Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Man Who Mows The Lawn While Using a Cane

Not long after we moved to Niagara On The Lake, dear friends from Toronto mentioned to us that they had an acquaintance who knew our house and knew the previous owners. In a conversation with our friends, he mentioned how he had driven by and noticed a man moving the lawn while using a cane. I will confess, that would be me.

Before we moved, before my surgery and the lengthening of the my leg, I didn't mow lawns; we didn't have a lawn. We had a magnificent rock garden, a hill of trees, several beds of plants and a big deck. No lawn, no lawn mover. Our new house has even more astounding gardens but huge amounts of grass. So we have a mover (electric re-chargeable) and I mow the lawn. One of the reasons I mow the lawn is because Debi does so much else and besides, I should be able to mow a lawn right?

One the things you learn when you learn how to walk is that walking involves muscles, tendons, bone, joints, coordination and balance. In a way walking is physical, mental, conceptual and complex and no where is this more true than when it comes to maintaining one's balance. It is all about your brain-nerve interface sense of where you are at any moment in relation to the ground and what needs to be adjusted to stay upright. It is done faster than you can think and involves a steady series of adjustments, shifts and tweaking of direction, position and poise. So if you are on an even flat surface, staying upright and steady is relatively simple. If you are on an uneven surface, well not so much. And if you think about a lawn, despite its appearance from a distance, a lawn is some distance from the idea of flat or even. So on a flat surface, I can walk without a cane. On an uneven surface, it is more complicated.

So when I mow a lawn, I keep a cane handy. Yes, it is awkward, and ungainly and to a certain extent ludicrous but it works. It helps me maintain my balance while I mow and yes I know that people stare at me as they walk or drive by and I am sure some of them think, why is that guy mowing a lawn if he needs to use a cane to mow a lawn.

I had dinner with a couple of old friends the other night and one was talking about what life was like after a truly epic service at the CBC and after commenting on a number of aspects of his new life he observed with great delight that he found himself taking huge pleasure in the most ordinary of life's activities. I understood completely. After my surgery, after my stint in a rehab hospital, after learning to move about more confidently, one of the household tasks I took back was emptying the dishwasher. Filling up a dishwasher with dirty dishes and then taking out the clean ones and putting them away may sound close to mundane, boring and mindless but I found and find the process liberating and affirming.

For most of us, doing the ordinary necessary things of life is often truly a chore. But sometimes you learn that ordinary necessary things of life are as much a part of the moments that stitch together to form a life as are the adventures, ecstasies and thrills that we enjoy so deeply. You learn in mindfulness meditation that life is moments in sequence and the moment spent stacking a plate is as much a part of life as breathing. Being able to empty the dishwasher was and is a sign to me that my life is on track, that I can and do help maintain the web of connections that makes me human.

So too with mowing the lawn. It isn`t a `big`thing, but it is a thing that needs to be done and if I don`t do it, someone else has to. If you have a lawn it needs to be mowed. And the reality is that mowing a lawn is good for me. It forces my body to move in ways it may not want to. It forces my brain to pay attention to balance. It shows me things about moving and walking that I need to attend to.

Learning to walk again has taught me many things, learning to walk and mow a lawn is teaching me other things, some different, some just variations on a theme. A wise person once said you can find the essence of life in a drop of water, I am learning you can find the meaning of life in mowing a lawn and sometimes the meaning of life comes with a cane.  

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Being Reminded What Polio Means Today


This morning there was a news alert from the New York Times reporting that the UN was once again taking up polio and measles vaccinations in Liberia now that the country was free of Ebola. It is one of those real good news bad news days when the absence of one extremely deadly disease allows you to continue to work eradicating other less deadly but nearly as devastating diseases. As I have mentioned many times before, I have an ear tuned and an eye pealed for each and every reference to polio. It is that obsessive compulsive reflex that everyone who has ever been touched by a disease or disaster harbours for the rest of their lives.

During the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, late at night, after talking for two days about my book, I went to see the new documentary, Every Last Child. It is a fascinating film, funded by the United Arab Emirates and the Gates Foundation of the twists and turns, deaths and delays, hardship and hazards of trying to vaccinate every last child of Pakistan against polio. For a variety of reasons sections of Pakistani society are opposed to vaccinating children against polio, in particular elements of the Pakistani Taliban. In the documentary we are taken through various efforts to get the kids inoculated.

Two segments in particular struck chords in me and at times left me nearly in tears.

One involved a man in his late twenties, early thirties perhaps, who had little movement in or control of his legs. His efforts to move about, to take a shower, to find any employment, any community were heartbreaking. Years ago we visited India and numerous encounters with individuals crippled by disease, many probably by polio, left me at the time numb and understanding that all that separated me from them was truly dumb luck. I was fortunate to be born here; they were not. I lucked out, so to speak, in having access to a world-class health care system; they did not. Watching this man navigate the world left me strangely grateful for the opportunity to learn to walk three times. As hard as it has been to do so it pales in comparison to that man's daily life.

The other segment involved a young boy, a toddler who had been stricken suddenly with paralysis of the legs. Watching him be examined, be probed, watching technicians fit him with casts, fashion braces, prepare shoes and then watching physiotherapists try to show him how to walk in the braces was heartbreaking. Watching his father look on with near despair at what his son would have to learn to do, watching him worry aloud about what chance his son would have in Pakistani society without the use of his legs left me speechless. The truth that was beaming from the screen was like a sucker punch. It left me reeling inside. Tom Roberts' film is worth seeking out. The story is both powerful and urgent.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Talking and Talking about the Book.


The book has been out for three weeks and the reception, the reviews, the reaction have all been very reassuring and somewhat embarrassing. I am not an unduly modest individual but the kudos and congratulations have at times choked me up.

What I have found most moving at the various events is the inevitable approach by a stranger who tells me about a parent, a relative, a friend who is experiencing or experienced some extreme difficulty, often associated with polio but not always, and the troubles that a friend or relative went through to maintain even a semblance of mobility.

The stories don't come with questions or even comments really, they are simply a sharing. It is as if me being there, my book being published is a reason to talk about what they witnessed, the at times incredible pain and effort people sometimes have to make to overcome an illness, to manage a disability. I am reminded again and again that the Buddhist notion that 'life is suffering' has a crystal clear ring of truth at its very core. People endure pain, confront obstacles and wrestle with sometimes near impossible difficulties and for the most part there is no forum, no occasion, no time to discuss or share this most basic reality.

Far too often we find ways of being glib, avoiding difficult conversations, all in the interest of not troubling another person with our own burdens. What we miss, what we lose is that most basic of connections, that sharing of our common humanity. I met one man who describe a near relative who had struggled his whole life with even the most basic mobility and he wanted to know if his nephew would enjoy the book or would the book make him sad. I said I didn't know and we talked a bit about the nephew and his approach to life and then we talked about the book and he nodded his head and said, "I think he might enjoy it," and he asked me to sign the book. As he walked away I thought, wow, would I enjoy this book if I hadn't written it, if it wasn't about my life? I think so, but it is a question I am wrestling with. I never intended my story to be 'inspirational' and some of the most pleasing comments I have received describe the telling as open, honest, blunt. For now, as I mull this over, that will do.