BLACKOUT

Friends!
This time last year, I was given a directive by my physical therapist not to walk, jump, run, or dance for the foreseeable future. My right hip was inflamed due to a labral tear and I needed to rest. That meant: no strenuous movement. A labral tear is a pretty common injury in people who use their bodies (read: too much) - in many ways it's shocking that it didn't happen to me earlier - but that practical thought paled in comparison to the confounding prescription I was offered. No strenuous movement? What about the 12 fitness classes I teach every week? What about the 10,000 steps a day in San Francisco? What about my Pilates practice? What about…me?

I move to make sense of things - I always have. What do I, Patty Wortham, do if I can’t sweat through my days? Joan Didion once said, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." Replace Didion's 'write' with 'move' and you have my process. When in doubt? Dance it out. When in crisis? Bike and cry. When in transition? Take a hike! There has always been a movement based cure for what ails me so when my coping mechanism was taken away - I was stuck. My normal pathways to happiness and clarity were temporarily barricaded and as a result? I went dark.

For the first time, in what felt like my entire adult life, I withdrew from any kind of creative outlet. I wasn't performing with a theater group, I stopped posting here, I wasn't making podcasts, or even spit balling with friends on their creative projects; I just went to my job, did it, and came home. Ironically, I had just started managing a Pilates Studio, which meant I could stand and cue other people through movement all day - I just couldn't do it myself.
Most people didn't know. I didn't want to advertise the injury because somehow I felt ashamed of it. I'm supposed to be the able-bodied person who is leading everyone to physical empowerment! How can anyone believe me if I have an injury?
I went into basic survival mode. I did the exercises my physical therapist prescribed, I practiced gentle movements on the Pilates equipment, and I learned to like sleep. I actually stopped doing all sorts of things I could have been doing, but the absence of vigorous exercise, the lack of momentum, and the confusion of not being able to relate to myself in my usual way caused me to retreat. For once, I felt a profound sense of inertia, that basic law of physics, pulling me back to stillness at the end of each day, leaving me with a single, quiet, thought, "What is the point of all this?'
Oh, yes, I went THERE. As I said, I went dark! And really, if you're expending as much energy as I was before the injury, a fair question to ask might have been, "Why do you you need to move so much?"
But that, dear friends, is a whole other post.
Today I'm sharing the great BLACKOUT of 2018 because I didn't realize I was doing it at the time. With even a tiny bit of hindsight, I can look back on last year and see in myself what I have witnessed in so many of my clients: an event occurred that changed the relationship I have with my body and, as a result, I shutdown.

The relationship we have with our bodies is an arranged marriage of sorts, orchestrated by fate, a lifelong bond that we are forced to negotiate up until the very end. And like any marriage, arranged or otherwise, the hardest part is on us: to keep showing up for it. I felt like my partner in crime, my body, had betrayed me. How was I supposed to move forward knowing that one or both of us might be too much for the other? Obviously, we needed a mediator of sorts. A marriage counselor, if you will, to get us back on track. Even after the inflammation of my hip subsided, I could feel my trust just wasn’t there; I no longer felt structurally sound. It seems counter intuitive to get a personal trainer when you are dealing with an injury but that’s exactly what I needed; not just a physical therapist to manage the injury, I needed a trainer to help identify and cultivate the STRENGTH.

Enter: Beta. Yep, that’s her given name. A breakdancer by night, personal trainer by day. Beta could see all of the opportunity for strength and movement that I had come to doubt; in a healthy way, she would challenge me, encourage me, and inspire me to see the function, to rediscover the vitality, and to believe, once again, in the possibility of my body and myself.
We identified weaknesses that had been around long before my injury; we started building a new foundation for strength in my hips that I could feel shifting my core, my back, my legs. Beta moved south a few months ago but she left me with another wonderful trainer who I meet with once a week. Fun fact: he has a labral tear in his right hip too! He got his from some combination of football and living so we’re two peas in a pod.

I feel pretty strong these days, I've noticed an integration of strength and mobility that hasn't been around for awhile (maybe ever?). I can dance again. I went to a Robyn concert at the Fox last month and LOST MY MIND; I sweat through my clothes I danced so much. And that, my dear friend, felt like LIVING. Sweat please and thank you! There's a balance I'm moving towards - it might be a mirage, I realize - but I don't care because it keeps me pushing forward with a renewed sense of wonder.

Octavia Butler, goddess of science fiction, wrote, “The only lasting truth is change.” These words have become a mantra of mine over the years, they help manage my expectations and temper my reaction to life’s challenges. And much like the Joan Didion line, with just a small edit, her words define this dynamic we have with our corporeal existence: Our body’s lasting truth is change. Some people feel the challenge of this from a very young age, some of us discover it later - with injury, with pregnancy, with time - but the worst thing we can do is walk away or give up on our bodies. They are worthy of our commitment.
Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal. A perfect time of year to believe in the power of your own system to rise again, to defy the odds, to seem like a total fucking miracle. This is the season to crawl out of the cave, seek community, call the friend. Connect, reconnect, to both your own strength and that extraordinary power we draw from one another. There's a full moon this week and a Vernal Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere with our names all over it. Nature is creating change all around us, flowers pushing up out of the earth, blossoms exploding from craggy branches, butterflies soaring overhead in search of verdant, northern territories - so how would you like to transform, friend?
Now is the time. Your body is waiting for you. Welcome back.

- P.