The Unfit Athlete

BACK PAIN SUCKS, NO KIDDING

You know how I write for television?  Well, part of the job is to produce episodes of television.  Which basically means, I sit on my ass in a director's chair for a billion hours a day on set and answer any questions the actors, directors and crew members might have about the script.  It's fun.  Except when your back goes out.  Which happened to me at the end of last season.

 It was during the filming of the season finale of Private Practice.  The brilliant Jeannot Szwarc was directing a script written by the equally brilliant Debora Cahn.  I was sitting on my chair in what we fondly call video village, when all of a sudden my lower back started to spasm.  Not such a big deal, right?  It's a lot like cramps.  I'm a grown woman.  No stranger to cramps.  I can handle this for sure.  No worries.  Until the spasms didn't stop.  

And they didn't stop.

And they didn't stop.

And all of a sudden I didn't know if I was going to be able to stand up or walk. 

I was scared.

So, I tried to stand.  I made it.  Sort of.  My left shoulder faced backwards, my left arm was suspended in air, trailing behind my body.  I felt contorted and twisted like an ancient knotted tree or cousin Jerry from THE FACTS OF LIFE.  Pain seared up and down my spine.  I was miserable and terrified and needed to work four more hours, until the end of the day.

I know what you're thinking, couldn't someone cover for me?  And the answer is all of my amazing co-workers wanted to and all of them had other important things they needed to be doing.  So, I got through it.  Then, I was in bed on my back for a few days.

The things was, I had planned a vacation in Hawaii a week after the filming of Season 3 ended.  But, I wanted to be healthy and able bodied in Hawaii because I fully  intended to bike down a volcano, learn to snorkel and swim with turtles.  So, as soon as I could walk, I got my ass to the pilates studio and worked every single day until I left for Hawaii.

The first exercise Amanda (my pilates instructor) did with me was a gentle hip massage, where she glided my legs back and forth and I basically did nothing.  Slowly, we worked at relaxing my lower back and strengthening my abs.   Slowly, my back began to release and I could feel the benefit of the strength work.  And by the time I got to Hawaii, I could not only walk, I could move around and enjoy the scenery.

THE SPORT OF RELAXATION

I'm face down, in the Pacific Ocean.  The tide gently rocks me back and forth, back and forth. 

I'm snorkeling.  Sport #3.

I watch bright yellow fish and orange fish, many, many fish swimming in and over and through coral.  There's a green turtle to my right.

My back pain floats away in the tide.  (It got bad the last few weeks on set, so bad I had trouble walking.)

The stress of the last weeks of work floats away in the tide.

My guilt of not writing my blog floats away in the tide. 

I forget I'm a writer, girlfriend, daughter or friend. 

In this moment, I'm a woman swimming with turtles. 

One of them swims to the top and I follow her.  Just an arms length away  Three feet away  the reptile opens her mouth and inhales. 

She looks like a dinosaur, something primal, something ancient, she breathes the same air I breathe.  And she's right there.  Being so close to something so foreign makes time and space feel both small and infinite.  (Is this what Borges was exploring in El Aleph?)  The turtle dives.  Her dance is ancient.  Her life is simple, straight forward, uncomplicated.  

I float and watch her swim,the serenity I so often long for envelopes me.  It is mingled with the water and inseparable from the push and the pull of the tide.  The serenity is the fish below me, moving back and forth and back and forth in the current.  And the serenity is me. 

This moment will last forever in my memory to be recalled when I need a piece of stillness and this moment is already gone.  Both things are equally true.

Another thing is equally true, there is a turtle breathing right now, there are yellow fish and orange fish and puffer fish and blow fish moving back and forth with the water as I write this.  And if I hadn't been brave, been determined to be both unfit and an athlete, I wouldn't know that.

It's good to be back my friends.  I have many stories and adventures to tell you.