Mobility Gratitude

By Jessica Gingold

Tonight, after too many vinyasas to count, a wobbly, but convincing headstand, low lunges, high lunges, half splits, full splits and the happiest baby pose you could imagine, I was instructed to thank myself. I was told to have gratitude for my healthy body that allows me to do all the physical activities I want. In that moment, I was grateful. I was grateful for the practice I had just had. I felt a deep strength in the prior 90 minutes I rarely encounter in the day-to-day. Still, underneath that gratitude, I felt a sadness. The truth is, my body is limited. I can do yoga, but frog pose hurts. I can walk briskly, but it’s been ages since I went on a run.

From age eight to eighteen, I spent more time gliding on ice than walking. I never fully fit into the competitive figure skating world. My first skating outfits were bought at a dance store from the sale bucket. I had a skating dad, thus I did my own French braids and they were often a little lopsided. One of my early programs was to Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin; even when I would skate a clean program, the judges never really warmed up to it. I did not cut back on school to pursue my dream of going to the Olympics. Still, I was a figure skater.

Skating was my outlet and my balance. I was a straight A student with a social justice activist family. Most minutes of life were full of intense, complex ideas. When I was on the ice, it was just me. I loved the challenge. I was never the best skater, but I was solid. I landed my double axel early, and successfully earned my gold medal in Moves in the Field and Freestyle. When I was 16, I had to write about my spirituality for my progressive Unitarian church group. God is still something I am growing to understand, so at age 16, God was not the subject. Instead, I wrote about the transcendent feeling of landing a clean double axel. So while I was perhaps a non-traditional skater, it was deep in my soul.

When I got to Colorado College, the first order of business was setting up the Colorado College Figure Skating Club. Our club went on to host two regional competitions and several shows. However, I never got to compete freestyle at our competitions.

Two months before our first show, my brothers came out to visit for our annual sibling trip. We naturally planned a weekend of skiing. I am four and six years younger than my brothers, so I take pride when I can compete with their skill level or possibly even outshine. We were at Arapahoe Basin Ski Resort, the slightly edgier, far cheaper resort. The top bowl is steep and thrilling. All day we watched more experienced skiers hit a small jump that sent them gracefully flying. As I conquered slope after slope, my confidence (er, cockiness) climbed. I leaned into my brother Adam and said, “I’m going to do the jump.”

As to be expected from an older brother, the response was, “Go for it!”

He did not offer to accompany me on the venture, which only heightened my commitment to the task. I was going to tackle something physical that my older brothers had not. For a little sister, these opportunities rarely arise. I had to do it.

I hit it straight on. I flew. I felt limitless. I landed it. Oh my god, I landed it! My brother is hootin’ with pride. Oh wait. I’m going really fast. I’m bottoming out. There goes my left ski. I’m down. My right ski is still on and not in the right direction. That hurt. But, I landed it. Adam is coming to help. Act cool. You landed it.

I skied down the mountain, refusing to admit defeat. I stumbled to the car. Three weeks later I had my first of four knee surgeries. It was a torn ACL. I like to say it was my right of passage for moving to Colorado. But, it never quite healed. I never quite healed. For ten years, my body, my mobility had been a defining factor of my identity. It was the skating rink that kept me humble and opened up my inner artist. I had been struggling at skating practice prior to the incident, but it was exactly that struggle that kept me whole. I would never know that precise struggle again.

I would come to know an entirely new struggle. My first knee surgery never really healed. The doctors said I needed the scar tissue removed, so a year later, I went under the knife again. During the recovery of that one, I was at our annual family picnic. We used to do the picnic in Northern Ohio, but have more recently relocated it to my aunt Kathy’s farm in Morrow, Ohio.

My Aunt Kathy has MS. She is in a wheelchair and over the past 10 years has lost her ability to walk, stand, move her legs, pick things up and operate her electric wheelchair. She was a cheerleader in high school. She is a countrywoman who raised sheep and chickens. I used to spend the night out at the farm when I was little. We would wake up early and go on egg scavenger hunts. We would jump on wool to make felt. We would do yoga videos, each carefully balancing on one leg desperately trying to perfect holding our foot out in front without collapsing. This is a woman who used her body to the fullest, and is now confined to experiencing mobility only by relying on those around her.

This particular family picnic, I was crutching around, feeling a bit sorry for myself. My aunt rolled over to me. She asked me about skating and how my recovery was going. I expressed that I was not really able to skate to my fullest anymore. I was careful not to whine too much. I mean, I was going to walk again, possibly even run. I had glided on ice in the past year, just not landed any double axels. It really was not that big of a deal in the big picture.

Still, Kathy looked me in the eyes and in the most sincere acknowledgment said, “I cannot imagine how you are feeling. It must be really hard.”

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. A woman, who had lost her complete free agency of mobility, was looking at me and genuinely expressing sadness for the fact that I would maybe never be able to skate again as I once did. I felt a little silly taking her support. But, at the same time, perhaps she is the only one who really could understand what it feels like to adjust to a new physical state. It is about far more than the pain one endures in surgery or the inconvenience of the recovery. It is about adjusting your identity. It is about finding new depths of your soul and spirituality. I was a competitive figure skater. I was never going to be an Olympian, but I had plans to land double axels at age forty. Kathy got that. She got that deeper suffering and she gave me the strength to confront that deeper, more significant pain. And in confronting it, she gave me strength to find gratitude for all I still have.

Jessica is the Education Council Program Coordinator at Mikva Challenge, an organization dedicated to developing the next generation of civic leaders. Prior to joining Mikva, she was as a Princeton Project 55 Fellow working for a nonprofit healthcare organization in Chicago, Illinois.