Rowing Back to Myself

I wasn't planning on getting on the rowing machine today. But, after basketball practice, I felt like I still had some cardio energy to use up so,  I went to the gym thinking I was going to handcycle as my legs are shot from all the physical therapy this morning. Yet I saw the rowing machine first, and couldn't stop the pull within one minute I was back in position. I wouldn't classify my relationship with the rowing machine as a love-hate one, just somewhat complicated.  I think my relationship with rowing in Israel and the old memories it brings up is one I have yet to fully process. But, I felt the urge to row instead of using a handcycle. I decided to sit and try and go with the flow of my body.

The numbers flash on the screen with my first pull, but for the first time, they dont start millions of calculations in my brain. Numbers mean a lot in rowing, especially competitively. They are one of the main measuring tools used to check how you are raising your skill and power, as the race is who can race the fastest to the finish line. The type of number differs between stroke rate, Five-hundred-meter average, power levels, and more but, it's all numbers on a screen. Numbers used to mean everything to me. I would constantly compare my times with others.  In the early days, it was against another teammate whom I was competing for a spot on the international team. During that time, it was also with the numbers on the scale, but that's for another post. Then in Florida, regardless of how much my coaches tried to help me make it just about my personal growth, I could rattle off last year's world championship times, and the standing world records for my divisions at any moment's notice. Towards the end of my stay in Florida, Coach Katie's words about rowing for myself, making personal goals and achieving them, while enjoying the process started to permeate my brain.  But, they stayed in my Florida rowing box and never made it to the Israel rowing box in my mind.

     Today, the numbers still sat on the screen in front of my face.  But, for once, if not the first time since Florida, they were that just numbers on the screen. I didn't try to speed up to get back to a pace I did when training four years ago, and didn't get upset when the numbers went up and down. The numbers were there, yet I listened to my body and enjoyed every pull and alternating types of pulls and just giving myself space to enjoy the rowing movement. Not letting myself fall into the need to hit a certain distance, or taking dreams so far in one practice, like trying to row a 5k and in my mind going all the way to international competitions. It was so different as many a time I've tried to come back to row on the machine that I miss so much. I miss rowing a lot, the power, and the release of the monotonous movement, the water, the breathing technique it requires me to use. Rowing takes me to a different place in my head. When I've tried to come back in the past, I would go to the box in my mind of competition with my old self, and where I used to be when I rowed all the time, this time I was able to stay in the moment and just row.

The first time I rowed it was on a rowing machine, my mom and I came to meet the rowing coach, he pulled the rowing machine out and set it up so I could see the water.  He showed me how the rowing motion, and then I was just supposed to try it for a few minutes. Two minutes in and I'm hooked and say I don't ever want to get off. Twenty-five minutes later, and the coach is like you should probably stop, you will be sore tomorrow even if it doesn't hurt now. There is something about the monotonous movement that calms me, my deep inner self. Maybe it's like swinging on a swing, the back and forth is so balancing outside and inside. Many moments and interactions happened after that moment, both good, bad, and ugly.  But, the rowing machine and I always had this first version of inner calm, that I found when rowing before politics, nasty comments, and after internalizing it all, had poisoned rowing in Israel for me.

Five years later, and maybe I'm healing. Because when I get on the machine and row, it's not about proving to someone that I am better than someone else, that my body doesn't contradict my results. It is about me loving the monotony of the row and the body that is giving me internal calm. And with that, loving my body enough to listen to it. Even though  I wanted to keep rowing till tomorrow, I listened to my body when it's tired, honoring it, and loving it. Throughout the row and all the passing time, I have removed many of the old hurtful voices that used to show up in my head, when I would try to come back and row.

This moment tonight is a lightening moment. One that I feel like I'm finally taking some trash out of my brain. Especially since my next thought wasn't, I need to compete in 5k indoor races around the world.  Rather it was just this rowing movement feels amazing, feels like a mental home, so I'm going to do it healthily for me and no one else.  Row,release,breathe,repeat.

Ownership of my Wrists

Unchaining My Wrists

TW: Rape,assault,cutting 

My wrists. they came up briefly in my a few of my Pride series posts and they have been a point of contention for me my entire life. This is an intense post one I've felt bubbling but have been struggling to write and talk about since I found this sketch and got the tattoo on my wrist. I haven't owned my wrists for years. How can I say that? They are part of your body, you own your entire body. First of all, to that, I'll say you have never lived in a disabled body before, but that's a topic for another post. Secondly, I'm pretty sure most people who have been through any type of assault, will tell you taking back ownership of your body is one of the hardest struggles long after the incident. 

The first time I felt like I didn't own my wrists I was probably three years old, having cerebral palsy meant I wore leg braces since I was two or three until 9th grade. I got these braces made, probably once a year and that required being casted as a mold for the braces. Which also meant as someone who is partly claustrophobic and hating to feel confined, but I was too young to explain how the process made me feel inside, I would just try to pull or push the casts off my legs, so the caster had my mom hold my wrists and lay me on my back. I think it took me two or three years of this process so by the time I was eight years old I knew to just lay on my back and wear my internal wrist chains. These chains laid dormant for years,or so I thought. But thinking back to when I started hurting myself I never touched my wrists, whether it was pinching, slapping, digging in nails, cutting, burning lightly. Many people assumed I wasn't hurting myself since they couldn't see the results. Especially since society has mostly decided the only place people assume self-harm cutting happens is on the wrists. I really never thought about that at that point in time but most of this self-understanding came sitting on my psychologist's couch many years later talking about tattoos. 

This lack of ownership of my wrists continued when I was assaulted by a healer when I was six, I had already learned just to be quiet and let my wrists chain themselves to the table. This continued when I dated a guy and was used to just being quiet so when I even bothered to say no it was easier to just be quiet, when he grasped my wrists, they weren't mine to ask back for anyway. 

Finally, I started taking my body back for myself, but even my first tattoo there was discussion about getting it done on my wrist but decided on the forearm instead, for a variety of reasons, but an unconscious one, was that I still didn't feel like I owned my wrists. It took years of therapy, coming out of the closet, and learning to own the rest of my body to realize I didn't feel like I owned my wrists. Giving an explanation of the internal turmoil that happened anytime someone grabbed my wrists, and sometimes even my hands. This tattoo thought process was faster than some others I had planned, but I think that also explains where I was emotionally and mentally processing some of the old moldy boxes in the recesses of my mind. This sketch of a cracked heart growing new flowers of life came up in a tattoo giveaway, I didn't win, but the sketch entered my brain and found a spot next to the semi-opened up box of pain, and the growth coming from it. The sketch nestled itself into the box and helped empty it out a bit more, and then sitting on the couch again, I realized that the perfect place for this was on my wrist. Taking back ownership of my wrists one step at a time. 

Musty boxes of my Mind

     I lock myself in the living room of my mind in the middle of the musty and rusted untouched boxes. The untouched boxes I don't want to touch but want to take them out to the curb. I then somehow still manage to ask myself why I am not able to dream about how I want the living room, forget the whole house of my mind to look like. Pen, paper, and words are tools the cleaner in my mind uses, and it creates a love-hate relationship, and when I run for too long from the pen with excuses it cracks the window to find the air. The air of letting go that comes from putting words on paper, I crave it but don't let myself indulge in opening up the boxes and letting go. Many of these boxes have labels. I have applied some of the labels and others have labeled some as well. These boxes are filled with kicking demons and muffled choking memories. I spend more time judging myself on having these boxes filling up the house, than giving myself the grace and space to unpack, process, and throw out the boxes. Holding myself back from opening up the room and letting light and growth into the room and turn my house into a home full of growth, dreaming, and achieving. I need to love myself and the dream house and world I want to create enough to sit through the painful process of emptying out the musty rotting boxes of pain. I notice this more when I turn away from letting myself write many times its because I'm struggling with processing old baggage that sometimes shows up in the same shabby box or gets a bit renovated for me, and instead of sitting an opening the box I try to just numb my mind and do mindless tasks. I'm trying to change this more so I can get to the place of visualizing, thinking and creating the home and world in my mind and in the world around me that I want.