We have at last moved into our new apartment, and it is lovely, the top half of a Victorian house in an adorable little town. We are in walking distance of everything cool, except my job, so now I drive to work and spend my walking energy much more enjoyably than I used to, when I commuted by foot up the dirty, noisy road on which we dwelt for so long. The antique lilac bush I pruned last week is in full bloom next to our new front door, and my cats are ecstatic over two big bay windows with southern exposure. They lie about with their tummies exposed in various patches of sun all day. Life is better than it was and improving every day as we continue to unpack.
This is a genuinely old house, so in some places the floors slant energetically in a variety of directions. It's like living in a pie pan. The kitchen floor is so very slanted that sometimes I entertain myself there with my wheelchair. I'll coast backward from the pantry or my studio door, only to grab one wheel hard making the chair turn sharply 180 degrees, then grabbing the other wheel hard to make it flip around in the other direction.
Silly games like this remind me of when I lived in a very small town in Southeast Alaska, where one winter the local "boys" taught me one of their favorite seasonal activities. We got into a big four-wheel drive vehicle and drove out onto a thickly frozen lake, put Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms into the CD player -- and this was back when both CDs and this particular CD were new -- popped the car into 4WD and reverse at the same time, and just spun around in circles backward aimlessly 'til the CD had replayed itself several times.
(By the way, these are fun but stupid tricks. I will not be held responsible if you try either of these games at home and suffer any kind of consequences whatsoever.)
In our new home, there are -- for lack of a better word -- speed bumps at the entrance of every room. These are just extra thick boards laid over where the floors join, ostensibly to seal heat and sound into each room when the door is closed. To get over these when walking requires a tiny tad of attention. To get over one in a wheelchair requires popping a mini wheelie. Now think about doing that with one leg and a bowl of hot soup in one hand. Tricky, yes.
I won't even try to describe the bathroom for you. Take my word for it; the bathtub alone is a whole other set of unintended yet practical exercise equipment, and taking off my eye makeup has created yet another opening in my life for yoga practice. Of course, yoga is usually practiced with the eyes open, and taking off eye makeup requires the eyes to close or suffer. In the absence of a sink which will bear my weight, I have discovered that when I close my eyes while balancing on one foot I fall over like a felled tree, a phenomenon as annoying as it is intriguing.
You may wonder why on earth an above-knee amputee would choose to live in an upstairs apartment (yes, that's up stairs, no elevator involved) with funny floors and a difficult bathroom. Well -- it's beautiful. We love this place, both the house itself and the location. We have always wanted to live in this town, in a house just like this, and are so happy to be able to have what we've longed for at last. And the point of my amputation -- again -- was to be able to continue my life. I absolutely want my life to be able to include stairs and funny floors, especially if it will also include lilacs and bay windows, happy kitties and beautiful walks.
Sometimes, though, when things get very silly, the theme song from an animated bit on SNL runs through my head, slightly adapted:
"Amputee funhouse! Funhouse!"
And actually, it is fun. So there.
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