Moving Right Along

The Day After

Now alternately called "National Shopping Day" or "Black Friday," depending on one's retail perspective (consumer v. worker, respectively), there has long been a movement afoot to rechristen this day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, "National Buy Nothing Day."  I laud this trend.  I do.  Things have gotten way out of hand with the obligatory gifting, no question.

In my over-cluttered lair, on this day I habitually cast my eye on all the stuff we already have and reflect on how I can most constructively get rid of some of it -- nothing truly useful, like my squeaky rubber rat, of course, but all the outright junk, or things that aren't junk precisely but simply are not used here.  The Goodwill Industries truck is just up the street.

However, I have to say that I have some very fond memories of this day circa 40 years ago, before everything got so crazy and compulsory, and back when department store toy departments were destinations in and of themselves, magic lands taking up whole floors or basements where you could actually play with merchandise before buying it, and all decked out in velvet and sparkles especially for this season.  This was back when toys that required batteries were still somewhat exotic.  Back then, and for years before I was born, this was the day my whole family would go out to window shop together so we could find out what each of the others might like for Chanuka.

From all that comes another story I think I've told before.  The year when I was three I fell in love with a yellow-and-purple paisley printed velveteen stuffed pig at the May Co. toy department.  (I don't even know if May Co. still exists.  It was once a higher end Southern California department store chain.)  Even though I clearly understood the purpose of the day to be window shopping, I cried when I realized the stuffed pig was not coming home with us.  "But he likes me," I wailed.  I was quite sure I would never see him again and grieved for days.

But then I did receive him for Chanuka.  I named him "Alfred" at my sister's insistence (because she knew I would just call him "Piggie," and she was sick of this particular naming convention), and he instantly became my favorite toy for life.  The bright pink felt covering his nose and ears and feet fell apart as I played and played and played with him.  I am not sure what happened to his original wire-coiled purple velvet tail.  His eyes were lost and replaced with pink buttons.  My mother replaced the felt a few times a year, less frequently as we grew older together, stitched up his war wounds, and finally, when he began to disintegrate beyond the skill of her clever needle in my late teens -- his, too, I guess -- she knit him a turtleneck sweater bag of lavender acrylic worsted.

And as you can see, I still have him, and I still love him and all the parts of my childhood still dwelling in his unwashable stuffing 42 years old this year.  And though he sleeps atop my unread books unattended most days, every once in awhile I pick him up and give him a squeeze, maybe even have a little cry with my arms around him just like I did when I was small and he was larger and I would sometimes have a day when all I wanted was to hold onto my oldest friend for dear life.

A little on my independence for Independence Day

I promised that at some point I would rave in more detail about my fabulous new prosthetic leg, and today's the day.  It's July 4, and another name for that in this country is "Independence Day."  As esteemed correspondent and honorary niece Dr. Elizabeth "F." McClung has already pointed out to me in an e-mail today, it's called that because we are supposed to be celebrating our independence from British influence.  However, since tons of my friends are British, I absolutely love toffee, Victorian writers, and the Beeb, and since I am myself writing this post in a form of the English language which my loved ones kindly call "Sara-ese" (and more unkindly call "verbose"), I sort of think that ship has sailed.

So I've got other plans.  I shall talk a little about independence itself.  But what better occasion to go on and on about the thing that makes it possible for me to perambulate "independently"?

Of course, I am not really independent.  I did not make this leg, design it, or pay for it, and I live with my true love off his salary, not, alas, earnings from my art, writing, jewelry, or tote bag and T-shirt sales.  (Yet.)  Endolite and Össur made the components of my leg based on the designs and experience of many, many people, only some of whom are employed by each company, only some of whom are even still alive.  A month and a half after my brain surgery, my true love and my excellent prosthetist Bob decided while I pretty much looked at the floor and hummed to myself what should go into the new leg after I had explained what I wanted to keep being able to do in my everyday life, and then excellent prosthetist Bob cast and then hand manufactured the suction socket and support frame, even laminating into the frame a bit of embroidery I'd prepared.  Then he put the whole apparatus together, and then painstakingly tweaked it, minute adjustment after minute adjustment, until the alignment was correct and I could really walk in it.  Finally, the good taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid for the whole thing, all $22K+ of it.  (Thank you, one and all.  All this and brain surgery, too?  Really, I feel so spoiled.  Yet please pardon me while I don't say, "Oh, you shouldn't have.")

Every life is a collaborative effort.  Every one.  In this country, we tout independence on a nigh mythic scale and tend to scorn people who obviously are not independent, but the truth of the matter is that no one is entirely independent.  Did you grow, cook and package those potato chips you're shoveling into your mouth?  Did you raise, slaughter, skin, butcher, and cure the different parts of the animal that gave its life for your shoes?  Okay, you paid for them.  Are you self-employed?  Did you invent and manufacture the vehicle that gets you to work or the machines you use to perform your job? Did you build the building in which you work, grading the land and then hand-hewing, milling and mixing all the different ingredients that went into it all by yourself, or pave the road you travel to and from?

Perhaps I've made my point, or one of them, anyway.  Independence doesn't exist in modern, civilized culture, nor do most of us really want it to even though we might spin a lot of rhetoric in its direction when we particularly wish to manipulate each other, or the part of each other that longs to see the world in simple terms, black and white, good and bad, worthy and unworthy, respectably self-sufficient and everyone who doesn't make the cut above slackerdom, leechdom.  As if there were ever only two categories of anything, let alone anyone.

I'm reading a book right now -- against my better instincts, perhaps, considering the subject matter (learning how to be a surgeon in a Boston-area teaching hospital) -- called Complications, by Atul Gawande.  At one point he talks about medical ethics and things that have been written about the role of the physician in terms of the patient's decision making rights and process versus what he himself has come to believe after six years as a surgical resident and more as a father of children who have sometimes needed quite serious medical attention, with very hard decisions attached.  He makes the point that a lot of people, given a tough enough prospect, don't want to make their own medical choices in the end, or choices for people they love who are unable to choose for themselves, and that it is just as appropriate for anyone to honestly feel that way as not, but that it is also correct that the right of all people to provide input into their own care at the very least should be respected, even the right to abdicate in situations that they have come to feel are beyond them.  He makes the point that each situation is different for each person, but that sometimes things are really so big and bad that most people in those situations find themselves unable to make major decisions at all and want, even need other people to make choices for them.  However, he also makes the point that an individual's autonomy must always be respected.

Autonomy, self-governance, is not the same as independence.  It's the thing we grope for as we come of age, delicious, respect-worthy, and a constantly maturing facet of each of us that it is certainly appropriate for all of us to nurture and protect within ourselves and each other to whatever extent possible.

My new leg which I did not earn but which other people bought me anyway does not miraculously turn me into an independent entity any more than the last one did.  It does, however, support my autonomy and my every groping toward greater autonomy just like the last one did, but even better.

This and others preceding it are pictures of my previous leg, which I named "Susie Dress-Me, Walk-Me."

She was beautiful, and my constant companion for four and a half years, but over those years, as often happens in this kind of relationship, we grew apart -- about twenty pounds apart. So I had to send her away.

"I can't use her anymore," I explained to Bob, as I handed her off to him for the last time.  "It's painful to walk in her."

"It's painful just to watch you walk in her," he agreed.  I asked him to recycle whatever could be recycled by donating reusable components to a charity that provides prosthetics to people who do not have the means to afford them.  He said he was going to put her on display.  (I imagine he was joking, though by the time I got done with her, she kind of was a work of art, some sort of art, albeit ultimately unfinished.)

I was standing on two feet when he took Susie away.  This is because I had finally been fit with my glorious new leg, which I have named "Action Barbie."

("If you're going to call her that, then you are seriously going to have to get some LEDs," my true love told me this morning.  "That way she can dance to her theme song."  And then he began singing a musical number of his own composition, a cross between blaxploitation and late 1970s TV theme music which I cannot duplicate with words.)

Here is Action Barbie in a pose of, well, inaction:

Pretty damn stylin', right?  Woo-hoo!  And I honestly don't know whether it's because of the colorful presentation, the fact that people around here are getting used to me and my sharp tongue, or the drastically improved alignment Bob so painstakingly achieved, but when I wear this puppy in public, even in shorts or a miniskirt, almost nobody treats me like a poor, brave, crippled girl who is just so damn inspiring to others anymore.  Huge relief.  Now I can just get on with my shopping.  Or whatever.

Let's look at each element!  First, my spectacular new foot by Össur, about which I have already blogged at some length, and whose color is the inspiration for the entire appartus' name, Action Barbie:

You see that white sock? Yes, I wear a short white sock inside my foot now.  And when I first saw it, I snorted in disbelief.  "Does it really have to be white?  Way I live, that's going to be absolutely filthy the first week," I assured Bob.

"We can seal it under plastic," Bob assured me in turn.  He also told me, though, that it is knit of thread spun from a Kevlar-like substance and very resistant to outside influence.  And you know what?  It's practically the same color it was when I walked out of his office with it, even though, as you can see from the filth accumulated on Barbie's pink plastic while I've worn sandals almost every day for the last two months, it has in fact been exposed to quite a bit of dirt.  Amazing.

Moving up, isn't this a nicely turned ankle?  Oh, the artistic possibilities.  I envision something with wire, and maybe beads.

This assembly is also made by Össur, I believe, and I am still not quite sure what all that does or what adjustments are possible with all those notches upward.  However, the flexible, springy metal "heel" of the skeleton of my foot fits into my shin at this point, and then that fits into the blue ball above, and that serves as shock absorber and also side-to-side rotor so that I don't torque the top of my thigh every time I twist my body suddenly without lifting my foot.  There's also a tiny socket and hose that feed into this ball (and for which I was given a special pump in a nice blue and white cardboard box) so I can adjust the pressure at will.  I haven't changed anything, because I like it fine the way it is.  I believe putting more air in will make it more or less responsive, but I won't know 'til the day I experiment with it.  (Oh, sure, I guess I could read the manual, but I might not understand it until I can actually feel it.  That's just how I roll.)

Next is the top part of the shin, made by Endolite.  As you can see, I've already gone over the whole thing with silvery stickers.

Endolite made most of Susie, and she did very well for me for years, as you know. In fact, when I first approached Bob for a new leg, I told him I wanted something exactly like what I had, but that was before I found out all the new things that were now available.  I'm glad not to be turning my back on Endolite, though, while at the same time I am very happy to have some Össur parts.

Once upon a time, when I was scared out of my mind and doing research to find out if I could even bear to have an amputation to save my life for a little while, Össur was the second search result I got for my AltaVista query on amputation, the first being an Atlantic Monthly article from several years ago going on in depth about apotemnophiliacs and acrotomophiliacs, which I hadn't even known existed and which frankly freaked me out even more than I already was, exhausted and beginning to actively die of cancer as I was.  (As my true love said, "Oh, great, are you going to have to start carrying mace now?  And am I going to have to beat people up?")  After that assault to my already traumatized nerves, how fantastic it was to visit the Össur site next and see right there on the front page (that month; they change all the time) a picture of a young woman doing exactly the sort of thing I wanted, needed to be able to keep doing:  standing on top of a mountain she'd just climbed, only wearing a prosthetic leg. She was a trans-tibial amputee, but still.  I realized at that point that the doctors were not lying to me, that I really was going to be able to have the life I wanted after amputation, and so after that I was able to continue my research, and then go ahead with arranging the surgery.  Though I wrote to thank them and have told several people this story, I'm not ashamed to say it again:  In a way, Össur saved my life that day.  They sure did help.  They were on my team from the beginning, even though it turned out that none of their products were selected for my first prosthetic limb.  Now I'm one of their customers, though, and now, if you weren't one of the people I'd already made listen to this tale, you know why I'm so happy to be.  But Endolite has done well for me, too, so it's really nicest of all to be able to have products from both!

Of course, this all represents something much bigger than me and my feelings, and yet I almost forgot to point it out.  (In fact, I've come back three days later to throw this in, because it's a really big deal.)  Five years ago, I was told that I couldn't have some parts by Endolite and some parts by Össur, because even though prosthetics were modular, they were not modular from manufacturer to manufacturer.  There were no standard fitting sizes.  For example -- and I'm totally making up these numbers, because I don't know what the real ones are -- the part where my blue ball (the likes of which didn't exist at all five years ago) fits into my black calf might be comprised of parts that are, say, 5cm thick.  But five years ago, maybe the "male" part of this connection would have been 4.52cm thick, while the "female" might have been 4.68 thick, or vice versa, so they wouldn't have gone together at all.  Now there are standard sizes for these things, so more choices for amputees, and that is a magnificent improvement in the industry.  Not all parts made by all companies adhere to these standards still, but the fact that there are any and that so many do is fantastic.  And this is how it has come to pass that I can not only patronize two companies I like, but I can also end up with the very best assortment of components to help me accomplish my particular life, regardless of who manufactured them.

One of the biggest improvements in my new calf-and-knee assembly is the kneecap.  Far above, in the pictures of Susie, you can see my old knee which was covered with a hard, shiny plastic patella.  I could flick the patella open and shut.  I'm not sure why this was a feature of any particular value; a lot of dirt accumulated in there over the years.  On top of that, the hard and shiny aspects made it very difficult for me to kneel.  My leg would slide around on all but the harshest surfaces, such as asphalt, even when I wore pants; in pants, the shiny knee would just slide all over the inside fabric.  I was proud of my scuff marks, just the same way I'm proud of the wrinkles on my face, because I've earned them, every one, earned them living a full life and openly feeling it every step of the way.  I didn't actually feel these scuff marks while they were happening, of course.  Still, I think you can appreciate where I'm coming from.  But having a soft rubber covering which can be easily replaced, snapped on and off, allows me to have traction and even a little bit of cushioning when I'm on my knees.

This part of the leg also houses the hydraulics by CaTech.  This mechanism is exactly like the one in Susie, and it is what I use instead of calf muscles to flex and unflex the knee.  Tension on this, or rather resistance, can be adjusted via that little wheel.  (I like it tight; makes me feel safe.)  Also, there's a little metal loop you can see between the blue prongs, and the position of that (pointing down as shown, horizontal, or or pointing up)  determines whether the knee bends normally, swings freely, or locks rigid.

The other noteworthy aspect of this part of the assembly is the part where the lower limb connects with the suction socket that holds it on my thigh stump.  (More on that socket in a minute.)  You can't tell by looking at it, but this technology has also improved in the last five years.  Remember how I mentioned Bob's painstaking alignment work, and also how I mentioned that I had had to have three separate sockets cast last time?  Just casting the one socket this time was quite sufficient because the type of connector attaching it to my new knee is adjustable in place.  I think the previous one was a little bit adjustable -- and we are talking about adjusting the vertical alignment of the lower limb assembly -- but this one is very adjustable.  Each of my previous sockets cost $6,000 to cast, and that was the reduced price set by the crappy private insurance I had at the time through my job at Whole Foods.  So not only has this technical improvement meant far less hassle and time spent for everyone involved, but also a significant conservation of funds.

Now it's time to show you my favorite, favorite part, the flashy orange suction socket!

This is also exactly the same kind of socket I had before. Aside from a wildly improved fit, the best fit I've ever had, the differences are bi-fold: First, unlike what dear Bob's former boss insisted on giving me with Susie, this one is actually centered over the mechanical leg assembly, resulting in FAR better alignment and a much more natural stance and gait, a stance almost identical to the stance I had with two healthy, organic legs, and a gait so much narrower and more efficient that, among other things, I can walk comfortably alongside people walking on my right for the first time in five years because I don't have to worry about accidentally clocking them on the swing, maybe hurting them, maybe tripping on them and falling myself, forcing me to deliberately inhibit my every step to accommodate that fear.

Here's the back.

On days when I expect to sweat a lot, you might be able to see panty liners plastered all over the inside of the socket through that translucent polycarbonate sleeve back. However, not covering it with more of the carbon fiber frame makes it more comfortable to sit in, more flexible and less slippery, and also reduces the heat retention of the whole structure.  The strap across, of course, stabilizes the shape under the force of my weight.

The other way things are different should be obvious: aesthetics.  For my first leg, and for the three sockets which were manufactured for it until I got one that fit, I embroidered the words "carpe diem" in lettering and with a flower graphic derived from a freeware font I invented a few years back called "Summertime."  These pieces of embroidery were laminated over each of my first three carbon fiber socket frames.

The version you have seen was embroidered in white cotton thread on a piece of blue canvas folded double.  The first version, however, was done on a single layer of bronze satin.  That one, frankly, came out looking like sh*t.

I remembered it looking like sh*t because the heat destroyed the color of the fabric.  It wasn't silk satin, just cheap synthetic which melted onto the black carbon fiber most unattractively.  (Well, actually, I didn't think that part was THAT bad; I thought it looked like ancient armor.)  What I had forgotten was that the second and third incarnations of this particular art project were made on fabric folded double, and why.

Bob assured me that he had now figured out how to help the colors stay true, no matter what fabric was used, by backing it with white fabric.  He forgot to tell me to double up, too, though, and why.

I went to JoAnn's Fabrics one day with every intention of buying more heavy blue canvas.  I hadn't decided if I wanted to stick with the "carpe diem" theme (leaning toward probably not, though), but I thought I would at least stick with what had been working so well for so long, materials wise.

Then I saw this stuff. (Click to enlarge.)

We were coming up on prom season, you see, and there were whole displays of glorious satin fabric.  You know I couldn't resist this one, not with all those rhinestones and sparkly things embedded right in.  And no, I did not resist.  I did buy some serviceable blue canvas, and also, just to have choices, some luxuriously shiny but plain lilac-colored satin -- plain as in not studded with flashing bits of clear glass.  And I decided that the appropriate course of action would be to embroider in cobalt cotton thread, using letters derived from a font called Edwardian Script MT, the words "ars gratia artis" (art for art's sake), which describe at least as much about me and my life as the words "carpe diem," and which also sort of signal a slightly different focus for me for my immediate future.  Besides, what really is more appropriate for a gratuitously embellished piece of mostly hidden fabric the likes of which Bob routinely laminates in wide variety into all sorts of customers' sockets free of charge because, as he says, it offers another opportunity for customization?  A transfemoral amputee himself, he understands quite well how important this kind of personal touch can be when you are having to wear store-bought body parts.

The thing is, I only embroidered through one layer of fabric.  As a result, when the synthetic fibers melted, even onto white fabric backing, they became translucent.  So now you can see the backwork of my embroidery, the places where I went from word to word, tied off ends, etc.  And neither of us foresaw that the end product would be quite this orange.

I love orange, and I am told it is the Vedic color of life itself.  I'm just not sure how well it goes with my summer wardrobe.

Bob offered to redo it, free of charge, but you know what?  Not only do I not need to spend any more time on this project at this time, let alone take any part of anyone else's precious, irreplaceable life just for some obsessive pursuit of visual "perfection" in handcrafts, but the look has actually grown on me.  It's a grunge/glam/raggedy-edged but still somehow elegant expression of my true experience, an imperfect experience to be sure, but one that flows, and connects, and so what if other people can see the work that goes into it all, because look how it sparkles.

Tomorrow Action Barbie and I are going shopping in New Hampshire with my friend D, so I have to sign off now.  I'm sure there's more to say about this wonderful new thing the people of Massachusetts have given me, but I haven't learned it yet.  I'll let you know when I do.

Meanwhile, happy Independence Day.  And thanks for your part in not making me live entirely independently, whatever part that might be.

Chappy Chanukah

Today is the first day of Chanukah this year, but last night was the first night.  Almost no printed calendars ever get this right, and it's insulting.  How hard would it be to print "First Night of Chanukah" on the correct date instead of "First Day of Chanukah" in the next day box over?  It just creates extra confusion, yet another gap in understanding between the Jewish world and the rest of the world.  Besides, for whom are the publishers doing that?  No one Jewish cares when the first day of Chanukah is; it's the festival of lights, of lamplight and candlelight, of lights that can happen only when there is dark.  The first night is what matters.

It was an odd Jewish family in which I was raised.  I was not bat mitzvahed, and the excuse I was given was that only the bar mitzvah (for boys) was authentic.  The bat mitzvah (for girls) was something out of Women's Lib*, and Women's Lib was just about as bad as Communism.

It was very important that we be Jewish and not be ashamed or secretive about it, but also not make a big deal about it and not look or act especially Jewish, at least not in public.   I was quite sure I knew what that meant when I was a child, but now, every time I try to figure it out, to point to one behavior or affectation and say, "That!  That's it!" I instead find myself saying, "But no, because Xs are like that, too."  The feeding and the eating?  Hello, Italians, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese?  Muslims, Catholics, Hindus?  And the Type A** thing -- look, WASPs, don't take this the wrong way, but we've got nothing on you.  Martha Stewart is not a Jew as far as I know, and I don't think Tim Gunn is either.  Okay, well, how 'bout all that bipolar disorder?  Yeah, well, most of the bipolars I know in Massachusetts seem to be of non-Jewish Irish descent -- which, by the way, supposedly so am I, a little bit, but not all the bipolars in my family were.  All right then, how 'bout the knock-down, drag-out arguments that never, never die?  Er -cough- Muslims -cough- Catholics -cough- Hindus -- even that is not strictly Jewish.  There's nothing behavioral that is uniquely Jewish, nothing, except specific traditions like lighting candles in memory of one specific little triumph over darkness thousands of years ago.  And bottom line, everybody else has got something like that, too.

Raising us throughout the Cold War, our parents were very concerned that we enjoy the freedom and diversity of American culture (as long as we didn't become Communists, hippies, or women's libbers) -- our people had come here to become Americans, after all -- but that we not get "confused."  I think they were as worried about confusing themselves.  Long before I was born, in the early childhood of my older sister and into the first few years of my brother's life, they had Christmas trees -er- Chanukah bushes, but they stopped for fear of that confusion.  Their last Chanukah bush was planted in our yard and had grown very, very tall by the time I was old enough to play under it, but it never exactly thrived.  It was always kind of yellow and shed a constant thick carpet of golden needles all over the yard, so many that they stained the local sedimentary rock yellow, which made me think I'd found gold when I was five or six years old.

Instead, somewhere in the middle of my childhood, we acquired from the gift shop at the temple a large Star of David made of strips of wood about an inch thick and painted blue and white.  It stood about five feet tall on a stand made of more of the same wood.  My mother quickly created the tradition of putting it up next to the fireplace and  then "decorating" it every year by Scotch-taping foil-wrapped chocolate Maccabees all over it, which we were only allowed to eat with permission and a limit so that they would last through all eight nights of Chanukah.  On the last night, we greedily ate however many were left.

It occurs to me now that the devouring of foil-wrapped chocolate Maccabees is not the same as the devouring of foil-wrapped Chanukah gelt (chocolate money you win playing dreydel) or Santas or Rudolphs or, in turn, Easter Bunnies.  It's more like devouring foil-wrapped chocolate French resistance fighters of the Nazi occupation or foil-wrapped chocolate American revolutionary Minutemen.  I wonder what might be the modern equivalent.  I wonder what chocolate effigies of today will be devoured on holidays a thousand or more years from now, if there are holidays or chocolate a thousand or more years from now.

Right now, there are holidays and chocolate, and now is where we are, so whether Chanukah is something you call your own or not, I hope you are enjoying whatever you can.  And if like me you are more devoted to sweets than religion or the culture of a specific heritage, I hope you can find suitable heroic effigies confected and wrapped in all your favorite colors.

(Anybody know where I can get a set of chocolate suffragists?)

__________

* I do not believe this is the slightest bit true.  I have never read even a single sentence anywhere to support this.  My sister has confirmed my suspicion that this is something my parents made up to protect themselves from having to go to the trouble, especially since they believed that I would only be interested in the whole thing for about five minutes, and that those five minutes would end sometime during the extensive preparations for but well in advance of the scheduled date of the actual event.  We will not discuss why my sister believes they expected this.

(back up)

** Yes, I'm using this term as it is understood colloquially, not clinically.  Colloquially when we use the expression "Type A" we generally mean driven, detail-oriented, perfectionist, judgmental, maybe even competitive.  To the Type A person colloquially speaking there is a Right Way to do things and there is also a distinctly Wrong Way, and the Wrong Way is any way that is not the way of the Type A individual in question.  Clinically, on the other hand, the condition involves immense personal insecurity and also walking around with a constant, health-threatening level of hostility, the kind that could give you a heart attack and/or get you into bar fights.  Though a bar fight involving Martha Stewart and/or Tim Gunn might be something to see, it's nothing I either hope for or envision realistically.  (If it ever does happen, though, I'm sure Bravo will be there to share it with us.)

(back up)

Dreams of the Missing

Stand clear of the closing doors.
This train is going down a one-way track,
and no amount of sorrow
is gonna bring it back.

-- Joyce Anderson, "Stand Clear" (The Great Sad River, Harvey Reid and Joyce Anderson, 2001)

In dreams, my leg has not grown back, though my sad, lost mother and all my dear, departed prior cats live again.  I dream that I walk in my prosthesis only very rarely.  Mostly I walk on a column of pure energy and will, and the people in my dreams either take it for granted or consider me the highest yogi guru for mastering my own resources in this very cinematic way.  Sometimes, you see, the energy is visible as an ephemeral cloud of golden sparkles in the shape of my missing leg.  Often it's invisible.  Either way, I walk with the same feeling and body mechanics I used to employ with all my original parts intact.

The other night I dreamed I had a new prosthetic, one that was made of plastics but that turned to flesh that blended seamlessly with my flesh when I put it on, and then reverted back to being obviously hard plastic when I took it back off again.  Problem was, because it was new, I was having difficulty getting blood to circulate into it while I was wearing it, so the foot and ankle were always kind of blue and necrotic looking.  Also, I could feel them while I was wearing them, and they hurt because they had such poor circulation.  I was told to wear the thing for a few days without walking on it in order to get it "broken in," but I wanted to walk, needed to run, and couldn't sit down, so I suffered and risked killing/breaking the whole priceless apparatus.

My dead cats are usually happy in my dreams, though often my dreams about them are about protecting them and not being able to because of their nature to try for freedom and their own choices.  Sometimes I merely get to watch them from a distance, with no indication that they know I am there.  I see danger coming and cannot intervene.  Sometimes, though, I get to hold them, and it is the sweetest thing except when I realize I am dreaming or when I wake up, and then I grieve all over again, weeping into my pillow even before I return to consciousness.

My mother is more complicated, coming into my dreams and needing like a child yet demanding like a parent, controlling and out of control, never a safe haven but always loved and sometimes welcome.  I spin through my dreams of her with sorrowful hysteria racing through the chambers of my heart while I sleep then awaken exhausted, always sure that what I have dreamed is exactly how it was when it was all real, even while sunlight and reason force me to dissect each narrative and find all the holes.

As I wake I can warm my phantom foot from the arch outward just by thinking about it, a tingling burning that is neither unpleasant nor the warmth of life.  I can even move the phantom toes, just, in shallow glissandi, first one way then the other.  But I know better than to try to put my weight upon any of it.  I know there is really nothing there but memories of flesh and wounds.

Picnic Table of Monkey Doom

It looks so harmless, this, our favorite picnic table.  And intrinsically, it is.  Oh, sure, it could give you a splinter or stain your clothes.  But it's nothing anyone should think of as evil, dangerous, or even complicated.  Still, there is a tale to be told here, a tale of drama and maybe a little bathos.  (Click to enlarge if you want to see all the textures.)

It's been a long time since I was a child, so I don't know if this happens to smaller people, but both my true love and I are generously proportioned, and not just because we eat well.  We are naturally large people.  We are tall-ish, true.  Also, we have loud voices, passionate hearts, strong opinions, and expansive personalities, and we are shaped to match.  Not everyone is, but we are.

As a result, in early July we learned (or relearned) something about picnic table design, and also something about phantoms and lizard-brain-level monkey terror.

It was an ordinary summer Saturday.  We cycled into the center of town and bought sandwiches at The Cheese Shop.  We bought drinks, and salads, and grabbed a wad of paper napkins.  We dashed, insomuch as we ever dash, over to this, our favorite picnic table, hoping that it would be free, and it was.

The thing about the classic wooden picnic table with attached benches is that it's yet another of those things I can no longer just use without thinking about it.  Because I'm big, it's kind of a pain in the ass swinging my fake leg over the bench and under the table.  Half the time I misjudge both distances and the length of time my prosthetic can sustain rigidity without being locked, so half the time my fake foot ends up getting caught on that part of the table where the bench connects to the table leg, and then I have to un-catch it, and it's all really too much trouble.  You know, for what it is.

Ever in search of the simplest path, I thus prefer to sit on the end of the bench, pictured above.  My organic leg can go under the table to the left of the table support.  My fake leg can go under the table to the right.

The thing about eating with my true love is that he likes to face me, not sit next to me.  This is more than a preference.  This is something he insists upon unless the only place for us to dine is on a park bench.  So on this day in early July, he parked himself directly across from me. 

It was fine.  It was perfect.  There was no reason to expect trouble, or danger.

But then a gust of wind blew our stack of napkins onto the grass.  And then my true love leaned over to grab them.

This is what I saw rushing up to meet my face.  (Click to enlarge for realistic effect.)

Yes, as I said, we are large, and so when my true love shifted his weight to reach for our flying trash, our combined largeness caused the table leg around which we sat to act as a fulcrum.  Up went the other end of the picnic table.  Down toward the grass went we.

I screamed.  My true love sat up abruptly, and the table righted itself before we could land unpleasantly.

"Well, that was exciting."

"Yes.  And now we know something new about sitting here."

"Yes."

"What was all that screaming about?"

"What do you mean?  I was terrified I was going to break my leg."

"That was a lot of screaming.  We really weren't in that much danger."

"No."  I chewed, then laughed.  "I sounded like a monkey, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"'AAAA oh oh AAAA oh AAAA AAAA AAA.'"

"Something like that."

"Sorry 'bout that.  I was genuinely terrified."

I chewed some more.  Okay, so we were going to hit the ground, and maybe the table would have fallen on us, but we were going to fall two feet and hit grass, one of my favorite surfaces to fall upon because it is soft -- you know, as compared to naked concrete.  And the table, which you can see is not in its first youth, doesn't weigh that much.  I could probably lift it, at least one end of it, with one hand and nary a grunt.  So, what the hell?

I took a swig of lemonade and thought about this.

"You know what I think it was?" I finally told my true love.  "See, I was wildly thrusting my leg out to brace us and keep us from falling.  Only I was thrusting out my phantom leg.  My actual prosthetic leg, of course, didn't move at all, because all my phantom leg is attached to is a disconnected femur end wiggling around in a sack of flesh firmly encased in my plastic socket.  And yes, I know this, and yes, it's been almost four years that this has been true, and yes, I am okay with it and well-adjusted and all that, but you know what hasn't adjusted and doesn't really understand what happened and isn't okay with it?"

"What?"

"My monkey brain.  Or my lizard brain.  Something.

"Some part of me that is base and biological and really really old expects all my parts to be there.  And even though this whole amputation thing has really not been anywhere near as horrifying as I thought it would be, every once in awhile that super-ancient part of me gets taken by surprise and is horrified.  So, like, there I am, sticking my leg out to brace us against falling, just as natural as can be, only I look down and the leg's not there.  But I'm moving it.  But it's not there.

"Now that's horrifying.  That would horrify anyone.  That's, like, archetypal horror."

"Poor sweetie!"

"Yeah.  So, sorry 'bout the screaming, but, you know."

It was funny at the time.  And then it was weird.  And now when we sit at our favorite picnic table, we sit sort of diagonally across from each other.

And my monkey brain enjoys the dill pickles and potato salad and stays quiet.