one-arm dance

The most fun I ever had during my few years at Fresh Air took place in the control room. It was the very beginning of the 21st century. My dear friend Ann Marie sat at the computer just in front of me. We had been assigned to work on Terry Gross's interview with David Rakoff, who had recently published a book. I'd long been a fan of his personal essays.

Before long, we were laughing so hard we were crying. I remember typing away, looking at the computer screen blurred by tears. He was funny, biting, vulnerable. David Rakoff was verbal in a way that can't be adequately described by the word verbal. His mind whirred away, and thoughts flowed out in elegant descriptive sentences delivered at a faster-than-average clip. He spoke the way he wrote. And he wrote in a way that was so personal and funny that the reader - at least this reader - felt a kind of intimate fondness for him usually reserved for close friends.

After that, even though he didn't know it, I sort of considered David Rakoff to be a friend. Maybe that's weird. But I truly cared about him. He gave me the gift of that hilarious hour spent with a friend (who actually knows that she's my friend) and with Terry, not to mention hours of delight while we edited the interview. We still quote it. The experience somehow cemented my bond to the show; all these years later I still feel connected to my colleagues from that time.

Yesterday I went on a short run and listened to a recent This American Life podcast in which they reran a tribute to David Rakoff. He died of cancer five years ago. I remember the grief I felt when I heard the news, and how soon after I sat alone on the bed in my purple bedroom in Annapolis after the children were asleep and watched a video of him reading at a live TAL show near the end of his life. In the course of his treatment his arm had been amputated, or maybe he had just lost the use of it. He talked about how he'd learned to do things like cook a pot of pasta with one arm.

Then he shared that he had, in abler times, taken dance classes. That he loved dance. And then suddenly, unexpectedly, the stream of words quieted. He walked to the other side of the stage, and with one t-shirt sleeve shoved inside his pants pocket and his pale head shorn of all hair, he danced. 

David Rakoff moved with exquisite grace. His body said much more than his words. He was dancer! I hadn't known. He was a dancer, and in his brokenness, he shared a dance.

This morning at church, our assistant priest opened the communion portion of the liturgy by saying something to the effect of: do good, and share all that you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Words like these normally to me sound like: be kind, be generous, give to the poor, visit the sick, give of your great reserves to those who have less. Be charitable. Time and talent! Give. It's not the only place we hear such messages. We're supposed to help the needy. 

But what if you are the needy? When we are urged to be more charitable, a position of power is assumed. Other people have less power, and it is our duty to descend from our perch and give them a hand. Giving is a comfortably good thing to do. Give a meal, give money, give time to a charitable organization. I feel awful many times a week when I am reminded that I don't have the ability to give in the way I once did.

We are rarely encouraged to receive charity. We are rarely urged to accept welcome with grace. But the truth I have discovered is that accepting generosity is just as hard, if not harder, than being generous. We don't value weakness, poverty, illness, dependency. We don't want to be defined by these things and when someone goes out of their way to help you, you are recognized in your vulnerability. Exposed, revealed, raw.

It's been a grueling few weeks for Mike medically, and thus for our family generally. At this point in my career as caregiver/advocate the way that I know I'm really struggling - like, alarm bells are going off all over the place - is that I start to not want to ask for and receive help. I notice myself hiding away, taking on everything as stealthily as I can, crying alone, because I can't bear to reach out for the support I need. Basically, when I am that depleted and worried and emotionally stretched, being exposed in all my raw vulnerability is too damn painful.

It's hard to ask for help. It's hard to admit you need help! So when I feel bad, I'd rather not.

It's one of those unfortunate human paradoxes, I guess. When I am most in need of help, I am most disinclined to ask for it.

As you might have guessed, I'm emerging on the other side of one of those hard times. Mike has been home from the hospital for two days, dear Heather drove all the way here to help with the kids and the house so I could work on putting things back together again after a tough week. I've had the chance to exercise again. And listen to a podcast. And cook a meal.

Normal people stuff. Normal people who can give to the needy type stuff. Not crying-on-the-floor-of-CVS, wrecked and raw, freaking people out with public tears, really really broken kind of stuff. Nah, that was Friday. Now it's Sunday night, and I'm stable, I'm good. I'm so good I can get back to asking for help.

Help, help, help!

See, it's fine.

Remember how our priest invited us to communion by saying do good, share all that you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God? When I heard her today, I thought of David Rakoff's dance. Share all that you have. Don't not share your dance because you only have one arm. Share your lack, share your incomplete body, give it all away. It will be breathtaking.

Maybe both the pain of receiving and the effort of giving are forms of doing good. Giving and receiving charity; seeing and being seen. Maybe we are called to inhabit both sides of acts of love.

I don't know why telling you how hard this feels, how tired I am, how I worry my kids are angry at me, how I cry a lot, how I obsess over my own minor health problems, how I am late to everything, how I worry I am letting Mike down, how my heart breaks many times a day, how I laugh too loud, how I hug everyone tight including some who might not actually want me to hug them, how I embarrass my children, how I ate a big dish of ice cream last night only two weeks into my six week dairy-free experiment (to see if it will help one of my aforementioned minor health problems) seems akin to a one-arm dance. But it does.

I am sharing all that I have, incomplete and exposed and beautiful in its own way. It takes a certain modicum of strength to share my weakness that I might not always have. But with your help, and with God's help, I'll keep trying.