December 3, 2010

The Advil/Morphine combo worked well for me today, on top of another massage. I have been sitting up and pain free for 11 hours.

I am resisting writing. It is getting late and I have no burning topic, nor even a: “Well I meant to write about this a few days ago!” My entire focus is on rest, or getting ready for writing on Monday, or the Wisdom Weekend 5 – where I was most of today, or the MFC Board meeting tomorrow, or supporting BW for a month (a bit of cash there), or how to eat right this weekend on very little money. Busy, busy, busy mind.

But writing this blog is for my expression. What is there to express?

I was impressed and disappointed this morning on how badly I wanted to just get on with my day and not bother with my acupuncture. When Jen was working on me I could barely pay any attention to her. I regretted this and told her so, but my mind was and is FULL of what I want to do NOW and where I want to go NEXT. When I showed up for the City Team meeting at 1:00pm most of the thirty plus people there weren’t expecting me even though I had sent in the official notice that I would be. The general impression was that I was too sick to get well so fast. My circle has the same impression.

Why am I supposed to be sick for that long?

Maybe my body isn’t big enough to stay sick for a long time. Two days ago I could sit up for five hours. Yesterday it was for ten. Today it was for eleven. Somehow in others’ minds I MUST be heading for a disaster. Perhaps I am, but to me it seems more like I am heading for my chosen future.

Clearly I am not “normal”. I believe that these past eight weeks have left me with a great deal of comfort and there are several dimensions of this fact. Literally I have (at least some of the time) much more comfort in my body. I can laugh at my moodiness and be OK with how much I irritate others. In fact, in the space of that comfort more people are confronting me with whatever is annoying to them. This has opened a space for clearing up misunderstandings and for building stronger agreements.

I realized today that the ROM wants me because, in their “eyes”, I am disabled and I fit very powerfully into their mandate to be accessible. However, in my own understanding I am not disabled. I am an artist who is committed to building peace and inclusion in the world. Before now I would have wanted to turn them around or turn them down - to struggle to convince them that I have nothing to do with “disability”.

Now I see that it doesn’t matter. Naturally they see me as disabled. It is the perfect place to start our relationship because the reality is - that is what they see.

Something will occur for the staff of the ROM and for many others simply because I do this. I don’t have to make any particular outcome happen. There will be some level of transformation and inclusion simply because I am openly engaging the process.

How can I be sick when I am having such a great life – today and tomorrow?