TAKING THE LONG COUNT IN THE BUCKET

TRYING TO GET UP AND GET BETTER

YESTERDAY WHEN I  MET A NEW PERSONAL TRAINER AT PLANET FITNESS IN  PAWTUCKET I took a first big step towards wellness.  And it was exhausting.

But I feel a little better this morning and also I sense a new  optimism--that maybe I can regain some of my lost and much lamented  mobility.

The  trainer who met me was one I had  found  on the internet and  had been impressed by his own improvement and his struggle against  his own limitations.
So when I met him I did feel that his sense of how discouraging it is to be  disabled was not theoretical or learned, but came  from his own lifelong experience.  AND I  respect that.

I am always amazed that when people  ask me to meet them and I ask if the place is accessible for  someone  using a walker they say Yes-- and when I arrive I cannot get in.

I realize that they are talking in theory, and I am stuck in the actual.

Once when I  was  in  physical therapy  at a rehab center, I asked the physical therapists if they had ever tried for a day to get around with a walker. They looked at me so blankly, and I knew right  away that I was in their books as a trouble maker.

Why is that such an off-the-wall question? In my mind it should be an exercise in any Physical Therapy  degree program.
Anyway I hope that my new trainer will transfer  his experience of having a disability to me.
  
I even raised the question of SHAME.  It  is  the Elephant in the room of all physical therapy  centers.  As soon as I  was unable to walk unassisted, I felt a great wave  of  SHAME  sweep over me when I went out in public.  I did not invent that -- I was seeing  the reactions of others to me. And the  assumptions--negative--they began to make about me.  
 The  Personal Trainer  knew what I was talking about. At the end of our session he began showing me his own before and after pictures. No  therapist has ever done that before --their assumption seems to be I am fine and always will be --he was saying  we  are alike and I improved and so can you.

Then he showed me a  video of  him in a  kick boxing match. I did not know what to say. He was doing great and held his own and then some.
Suddenly  I  blurted out "My father was a boxer"  And then I remembered a phrase  that he often gave to me  and any boxer that was knocked to the floor and immediately tried to scramble to his feet :  No stay down, take the long  count.
I even wrote and published a poem about  it ---

TAKE THE LONG COUNT

You are going to get knocked down.
Yes, you are, life will knock you down.
You just over swing--lose your balance
Trip yourself up--sure he's also pounding
on you--but you meet the canvas.
Don't jump to your  feet to show that
You can-- that it was all some bad mistake.
No. Lay there, Take the long count.
 Stay still. Breathe, enjoy the little  rest.
At eight count-- begin to get up very slowly
Stand and shuffle a bit, let the Ref
Look you over, check you out.
Don't run towards the  guy
Who is dying to finish you off.
You're finished with dying.

This poem was published in the ORIGAMI series of small 
chapbooks under my name and with the title
THE LONG COUNT.  You can find it on the ORIGAMI Poetry  website.