I Love Lucy!

My friend, Lucy Power Woika, inspires me.  In his wedding toast yesterday, her uncle Bob used three words to describe her, “G-Force, gumption, garrulous.

g–force noun \ˈjē-ˌfȯrs\

:  the force of gravity or acceleration on a body <pilots experiencing strong g–forces during takeoff>

I met Lucy when she was about seven. A little person, she had big and I mean big energy and lots of drive.  The oldest of three sisters, she seemed to be in perpetual motion, running circles around everyone. She loved to swim (won medals at the Little People competitive sports games), played a tricked out viola strung as a violin to fit her (she’s the reason my musician daughter, Sophie, took up the violin at age 4), and involved herself in a range of activities from theater to horseback riding. When she applied to college, she asked me to edit her essay; she talked about having to take three or four steps to every one step her peers took. Lucy does better than keep up; she leads.

gump·tion noun \ˈgəm(p)-shən\

: courage and confidence

When Lucy was in grade school, she and her dad, Judd, went around to all the classes at the school, and spoke about what it means to be a little person. She auditioned for the musical “Annie,” and guess who got the leading role? One of the only times I can remember her parents, Anne and Judd (my role models for raising remarkable daughters) saying “no” to her, was when they vetoed Lucy trying out for the St. Ignatius high school football team; instead, Lucy joined the track team and competed in the shot put.  Lucy graduated from UC at Berkeley a few years ago; landed herself a job at a recruiting company, and has since joined a technology company doing support for a productivity mobile application. 

gar·ru·lous adjective \ˈger-ə-ləs, ˈga-rə- also ˈger-yə-\

: tending to talk a lot : very talkative

Lucy knows how to work a room.  She has on many occasions addressed family gatherings, and eloquently thanked each person for his or her kindness, help, and support.  She loves a good conversation, a spirited debate.

Yesterday, Lucy married Ben, and as their group of friends noted, she has met her match and couldn’t be happier. 

“This is the best day of my life,” Lucy exclaimed.   She danced with her groom.  She danced joyously with her dad, and Ben danced with his mom, who wore kneepads under her gown and held her son close, swaying to the music. 

After their honeymoon, Lucy and Ben plan to attend the LPA’s annual convention (where they met five years ago) next week in San Diego. The LPA’s mission statement reads:

“Little People of America is dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with dwarfism throughout their lives while celebrating with great pride Little People’s contribution to social diversity.  LPA strives to bring solutions and global awareness to the prominent issues affecting individuals of short stature and their families.”

Lucy and I bond around civil rights.  Little people face physical and social barriers.   The LPA has a clear policy agenda that that promotes access, opportunity and fair treatment for people with dwarfism in all aspects of their lives.  I have learned a lot from Lucy over the years, watching her navigate the world, with her 3 G’s.                                                                                                              

Much love to Lucy and Ben.  L’chaim!

Shlepping Naches from the Personal Narratives: Global Identities Workshop

Few things happen that significantly change your life.

I am a different person after spending eight days with the mighty mentch, Anna Deavere Smith, a faculty of generous, creative teachers, and 40 courageous, compelling people who convened in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Grace Cathedral to participate in the Personal Narratives: Global Identities Workshop.

“Why this group of people?” Anna asked day one.  “We are all here for a reason,” she told us. 

We had an endgame of doing a “presentation/performance” at the Yerba Buena Theater, but that wasn’t the purpose of the workshop.

Anna talks about ideas such as radical hospitality ("saying yes to who or what turns up before determination, anticipation or identification"), presence/wide awakeness, saying words often enough until they become you. She inhabits real-life characters including Brent Williams, the rodeo Bull Rider, and Maxine Greene, philosopher of Education, to teach us about the human condition, naming the world, mind and imagination, tension/struggle, try and determination.

As Anna/Maxine notes,

“But art involves us in dimensions of our own experience

That we never knew before.”

This is exactly why the workshop was so very powerful.

 We spent our days engaged in making art:

Singing in four-part harmony for three hours with Maggie, who emanates light and love, and whose choral direction helped connect our group and infuse us with spirit…

Convening each day in a morning and day end circle, hearing the work we had undertaken synthesized and expanded upon by our astute peers…

Listening to people’s personal narratives, watching them edit, hone, clarify, refine, revise, and redo their stories, transformed by the workshop process …

Lying on the ground, actively resting, and re-educating my body with the expert help of Lori and Bonita, Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais practitioners.

Paying close attention to my words and their delivery, working with writer Sarah and dialect coach Amy, and benefiting from the perceptive critiques of my peers...

Dancing with Michael and sharing his joy in movement; doing rich acting exercises facilitated by Will and Kimber…

Exploring the meaning and transformative power of a single word, in a singing exercise facilitated by Anna, Marcus and his band, and etymologist Phillipa…

Walking in other people’s shoes literally, making this metaphor about compassion and empathy, come alive in letters we wrote to our solemates…

Performing at the Yerba Buena Center Theater, a thrill for all of us, seeing how far we had come, and how fully the audience received our stories…

I am so grateful for this opportunity.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.  My own journey had a lot to do with my dad, my grieving his loss and finding ways to keep him with me through laughter. I had the privilege of invoking him to open our storytelling in the theater.

Since the workshop I have been writing everyday, interacting with my technology coworkers with focus and determination, going to more live performances, practicing Tai Chi, and being present for the people in my life, including some wonderful new friends I made during that week.  It feels great. I am energized, inspired, heartened, and full of try.

Vollyballing

Volleyball is a complicated game of simple skills.  It is a game of constant motion. It demands focus and quickness. When the ball flies over the net, the receiver must in the blink of an eye, assess the incoming angle, decide whether to hit the ball back, or pass the ball to a teammate.

I started playing Volleyball with a group of Marin moms about three years ago. Every Thursday for an hour and a half.  I only knew one woman in the group. Her daughter played volleyball with my daughter in middle school.  When I attended their games, I watched jealously from the sidelines.  I wanted to play something fierce.

Volleyball is a rebound sport.  You can’t hold the ball.  You can’t lift the ball. Your team can touch the ball three times on your side of the net.  A team has six players. Three players stand close to the net; the other three play backcourt.

A lot happens in a relatively small amount of space. A volleyball court is 18 m (59 ft.) long and 9 m (29.5 ft.) wide, divided into 9 m × 9 m halves by a one-meter (40-inch) wide net. The top of the net is 2.24 m (7 ft. 4 in) above the center of the court for women's competition.

You can dig the ball (using your forearms to make an underarm pass), set the ball (using your hands to make an overhead pass), and spike the ball (using your hands to make an overhead attacking shot), serve the ball into play, and block the ball at the net. 

I am the oldest and the shortest person on the court, 58 years old, and 5’2”. I dream of what it must feel like to be 6 feet tall at the net, spiking and blocking.  I react fast, struggle to accurately dig, can set the ball decently, and have a very consistent serve.   

The ball is put in play with a service, hit by the server over the net to the opponents. The rally continues until the ball is grounded on the playing court, goes "out" or a team fails to return it properly. The team who wins a rally scores a point. When the receiving team wins a rally, it gets a point and the right to serve, and its players rotate one position clockwise. Each game is played to 25 points.  A team must win by at least 2 points.

The composition of my Volleyball group changes slightly every four months. Many of the women are stay at home moms.  They constantly juggle family commitments. One woman is a grandmother. One woman is a realtor. One woman played for just one session; she was recovering from breast cancer and wore a headscarf.  She grew progressively stronger each week she played. Two years later, the woman the who organizes us, announced that she had died.  Several group members belong to night and weekend leagues.

Volleyball evolved from an indoor game called Mintonette  (a cross between tennis and handball) in the early 1900’s, first played in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  It was designed to be slightly less rough than Basketball, invented just a few years earlier, some ten miles away. In 1919, the American Expeditionary Forces distributed thousands of Spaulding volleyballs to their troops and allies, promoting the growth of Volleyball in other countries.  Nudists were early adopters of the game, organizing play in clubs in the late 1920s.   

We play in our clothes.  Yoga pants, sports capris, t-shirts with slogans for multiple causes and colorful artwork. Many of us wear kneepads; I don’t, because I want to discourage myself from “diving” for the ball and injuring my body.

On the court, communication is critical.  But it is concise. Often just one word; occasionally, two words. “Service. “ (You say this before you serve.) “Got it.” “Mine.” “Help.” “Set it to me.”  “Side out.” Encouragement and praise is also to the point.  “Good one.” “Nice play.” “Wow.” “Good try."

I don’t chat much to my Volleyball friends.  I leave quickly after our sessions because I have to be on a work conference call every Thursday morning.  But curiously, I feel like I know this group of women, and that they know me, from how we play together.  I love my Volleyball community.

Not So Free Falling

Red blood stains the white sweater at the elbow of an elderly woman. She just took a spill outside the café where I’m picking up my lunch salad.

I ask her companion, a middle-aged man, who’s getting a bag of ice from the inside staff, if I should fetch my first aid kit from the car.

“No,” he says. “She’s got a huge scrape and I don’t think a band aid will help much.” He continues, “I’m taking her out to lunch today to talk about her falling. She’s 90 years old and very stubborn.” “I have an 85-year old mom,” I commiserate.  “It’s tough.” 

Fall – [intransitive] to suddenly stop standing

Synonyms: topple over, tumble over, keel over, fall down/over, go head over heels, go headlong, collapse, take a spill, pitch forward; trip, stumble, slip.

Falls are the leading cause of injury, death, and hospital admissions for older people.

When I ask how my mom’s friends are doing, she reports that so-and-so fell in the shower, out of bed, at the theater, walking into the restaurant, getting into the car, getting out of the car. 

My mom is a frequent faller.  Bruises and cuts, luckily no broken bones unless you count the time she took a nosedive (and broke her nose). It makes my heart stop.

Last fall she took, she lay on the floor for over an hour.  I called her and when she didn’t answer the phone, even though I knew she was home, I called the reception desk at her senior living complex, and asked them to go check on her.  They found her on the floor.

She refuses to wear her “alerting” device. She tells me, “I’ll just use my cell phone, if I fall.”  I repeatedly explain that she won’t be able to reach her cell phone when she is on the ground.

Why do old people fall so much? Impaired vision, lack of physical exercise, reactions to medications, diseases (Arthritis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s), dehydration, hypotension, environmental hazards.  They get dizzy, unsteady, weak, and their spatial perception fails them.

“Drink lots of water, go to your exercise class, and wear the sensible shoes I bought you.  Think before you move. Be careful.”   This is my daily admonishment to my mom.

I hope that my words do not fall flat.