Changed by art

I attended an arts/business luncheon recently, and the speaker was talking about how art can change you, without you even being aware that a change has taken place… I started thinking about that, and came up with a real recent example where a particular statue changed my life completely.


I’ve been on a hiatus from adventuring due to a recent illness and surgery. Mind you, it wasn’t a very serious one, just outpatient surgery, and the recovery is in full swing. But it became a long ordeal that temporarily stopped a lot of the activities I participate in… I serve on four boards, and have a full time and part time job, in addition to the home life, social life, and geeky excursions… and I went from all that to having to work my full time job on a part-time basis and had to drop everything else for a few months.

During that time, the most annoying part (aside from random bouts of pain) was pinpointing the problem… So there were a lot of visits to the doctor, sometimes as often as once or twice a week... and there were a lot of tests, which ranged from slightly annoying to very unpleasant.

And the thing they tell you on pain management is to picture yourself somewhere nice. I have a backlog of memories that I can call upon when needed for occasions like that… I call them "memorized moments," like a perfect moment in time that I can recall in exact detail when I need to. Like the sound of the waves lapping against the side of the Schooner Zodiac on the way back to port and feeling the breeze and sun in my hair… or the way the grass felt when I laid on it in my pretty dress outside of the tent where we performed All’s Well that Ends Well for Shakespeare in the Park… or watching a meteor shower fall into a sunset from a mountaintop… or rinsing my hair in a waterfall at Hanging Lake…

Like that. And usually it works. But then, I started to worry about what would happen to those memories if I brought those to mind every time I was in pain or scared. I really didn’t want to associate those perfect moments with anything bad, and was worried I would ruin those through that technique.

And then there was this statue:

I passed it every time I went to my doctor’s office. I’m not even sure what she’s doing. Maybe she’s a gymnast, or a dancer. She looks to be in mid-leap. Or maybe she just landed. I never really gave this statue a lot of thought, except for maybe: dang, I wish I was that healthy.

And then sometime during one of the tests, this one a FOUR-HOUR X-ray, when I’d run through in my brain literally everything I could think of… every song or poem I had memorized, every memory I could conjure up, every scenario I could play through… Usually downtime is not a problem for me because I can stay pretty active just in my own head. But during things like a FOUR-HOUR X-ray, with no music, conversation, television, or anything to take your brain off the fact that it sucks very much to be in a giant plastic tube with radioactive stuff dripping in your arm… there just wasn’t anything else I could think of.

And then that statue came to mind. I started shifting my thoughts away from where I was, but where I wanted to be. I wanted to be that healthy. I wanted to be like that statue. I mean, I’ve never, ever, in my life been athletic… never been to a gym, never played a sport, never really even had a definable muscle I could point to… and suddenly I wanted that very much.

So from then on, up through all the scary stuff where I go under the knife for the first time, I kept thinking about that statue and all the steps I was going to take in order to get there. And as soon as I could walk again, get around on my own again, I started working on it. I went from tiny small walks up and down the hallway at my house, to very careful walks up and down the sidewalk, to careful strolls around my block. Within two weeks of surgery I tried a short hike. Within a month I climbed a (very small) mountain. And then I signed up for a week of tango lessons. And then I signed up for a gym and got a personal trainer.

So, yeah – got lots of adventures planned for this summer, starting to get back into the swing of my routine and schedule, and feeling pretty grateful for a statue that made me feel healthier than I’ve ever been, even if I’m not completely healed yet. I’m still being careful, but can’t help smiling everytime I run longer than I’ve ever ran before, or complete a trail in a shorter time than I ever have… or even lift heavier weights than I’ve ever been able to lift before. Because I don’t want to return to the health level I was last year. I want to be healthier than I’ve ever been.

I’ve got lots of ideas of what I want to try next. Specifically, I’d like to train to climb the highest hill we got here in Colorado Springs. This one:

　
Say, on September 8^th. As part of the Pikes Peak Challenge, which also is a fundraiser for people with Traumatic Brain Injury. I’ve lived in this city my whole life, and I’ve never even been up there. But I’m going to try it – it’s a 13 mile hike with a 7,000 foot elevation gain. It takes beginners between 8-13 hours to do it. It’s something I would have called an impossible task for me before, but I’m starting to obsess over the idea of trying it anyway. Mostly, so that the rest of the time I live here in this city, I can look up at that mountain and know I conquered it.

Which would be pretty nice, since most windows in this city have a really nice view of that mountain.