​Recently, we had a meeting with Elizabeth, a friend whom I mentioned in another chapter. She’s an artist and specializes in Alexander technique, She’s very knowledgeable and has helped me a lot since my rehab started. Elizabeth, Eric, and I met on Zoom because she’d seen a video of my walking, and it had occurred to her that I could benefit by strengthening my pelvic muscles. That’s why she wanted to show us a special pillow to exercise these muscles and she thought Zoom would be a good way for us to see it.
When we met, Eric wanted Elizabeth to see the latest video of my walking, and she instantly agreed. So, I got to watch it as well. It was a real eye-opener. I had the opportunity to see myself walking instead of just experiencing it. I could concentrate on every minute detail.
And as I was watching myself, I discovered something I hadn’t noticed before: what Id done to recover my balance; I’d brought my torso forward, and I’d done it with my gluts.
When I watched myself making this movement, I suddenly conjured an old memory – it was a memory of one of the dance classes I’d attended in my early thirties. I vaguely recalled using my gluts to bring my torso forward. And along with it came my dance teacher’s advice to use my glut muscles to move my torso forward and to jump upward.
This was an old memory that had stayed buried in my mind and that I’d never retrieved. It was part of the store of procedural memories – the muscle memories that are the result of oft-repeated movements, in this case, during a dance class in my youth. As the neurologist friend of my friend had told me, in the process of re-learning to walk, I would disinter buried procedural memories that would aid me in my rehab process. I felt a mixture of happiness and relief; I would finally walk with a cane, step by step.

​When my hemangioma bled, Eric and I ended up in the hospital ICU. Close friends, BHA friends, and Argentine friends, they all knew my operation was about to happen and were in tenterhooks, waiting for the outcome. But then, when the operation was happening, several hemangiomas bled in my brain, and I lay in a coma. And when I woke up, my life changed; everything became part of a long healing process with an unforeseeable end. Luckily, once I was back home, old friends, BHA members and friends, new friends, and Argentine friends visited with me. And as I’ve written in other chapters, new friends grew to be close friends.
I knew a lot of people from Eric’s and my life in Beacon: school parents, parent activists, teachers, clergy members, Nathan’s friends’ parents, summer camp parents, and so on. They didn’t visit with me, but when there was a request for meals, they immediately responded with soup or a full plate; when I ran into them on the street or at a party, they smiled a bright smile and gave me a big hug; and when they ran into Eric or talked to him on the phone, they asked after me.
I knew all these people, but my relationship with them wasn’t so deep as to stir up the wish to visit me. It wasn’t deep enough to vanquish the qualms they must have about dropping by and spending time with me. Yet, when Eric and I went to the high school presentation, we ran into the mother of one of Nathan’s schoolmates. As we greeted each other with a hug, she said to me, “You’ve made my day.” Meetings like this one were so nice. They showed me I was cared for – there was so much love surrounding me.
I’ve wondered what caused Beacon residents’ reaction. If we weren’t close, why did they were glad to see me? Why did they show up with platefuls of food? And a potential answer has come to me. In a small town, you spend a long time doing different things with the same people: you run into the same people at the coffee shop, the store, the local market, the downtown street, the activist group, the march against social injustices, and the school yard. And in doing things together, you build a sense of community that prompts you to give, to hug, and to smile.

​Ever since my convalescence, I’ve had a great opportunity to satisfy my questions about brain function and, furthermore, a great source of new questions for which I have no answers –  I’ve seen new phenomena that have rekindled my old interest and love for neurophysiology. Each movement has revealed unsuspected links between different motor nerves.
When I’m doing arm or leg exercises, or simply lying in bed reading or writing, a conscious or unconscious motion causes an unexpected contraction of an unknown muscle of another limb. When I’m exercising my left arm with the resistance band, I have to grip the handle of the band in order to pull the elastic close to me and let it go. As soon as I grip the handle, I feel my lips tightening and have to willingly relax them. When I focus on lifting or swinging my left leg, my right gluts tighten. When I try to flex my left foot, it flexes and turns to the right at the same time. My nurse aid has to hold it to prevent it from turning.
To exercise my left fingers, I use a pill jar full of coins to increase its weight. I have to grab the pill jar, turn down my wrist, press my left fingers strongly, hold my left forearm with my right hand, and relax my fingers to drop the pill jar; its heavy weight makes the jar fall. When I press my fingers hard to grip the pill jar, my left forearm elevates, but when I attempt to lift my forearm without the help of my right, I fail.
And then, reflex contractions occur that take me by surprise. When I’m lying in bed and yawn, I suddenly feel my left hand on my chest. When my nurse aid sticks a cold pad on my left leg in preparation for my bike ride (for electrodes to stimulate my muscles), or my leg itches, it suffers an uncontrollable spasm or starts shaking. To stop the spasms, I have to relieve the itch, but I can’t stop my foot from shaking. I try stretching it with all my might, to no avail. And when I tighten my left quad to lift my leg and rest it on my right thigh to put on my sock and shoe, my right glut tightens in its stead.
All day long, my body behaves in ways that remind me that our bodies are connected. I know about lateralization, that is, the connection between the two brain hemispheres, but the questions remain: What modes of connection exist between our brain and our body? How do the innervations to our muscles connect? Do they cross paths? I don’t know the answers, but these phenomena always raise questions I could only reply by opening books I’d already put away, and they remind me of my old, forgotten love.

​I’m constantly traveling both ways: sometimes back into the idealized past, other times forward to the eagerly awaited future. I nostalgically remember the days before the injury fell unexpectedly and heavily on me; before I woke up and couldn’t move my left limbs; before I was strongly fastened to my bed by my seizures, which attacked in their unforeseen way and left me and all those around me overwhelmed by fear.
Of course, that is all water under the bridge, but every now and then, a yearning for the before-the-injury times creeps into my mind. Those were the times when I could walk fast and dance freely; when I could sing and enjoy singing; when I could work (and type my translation and editing jobs fast with two hands); when I could cook for my family, for BHA members, and for the needy – when I was active and could help others, instead of needing others to help me. Then, I focus on the future: time will magically fly, and suddenly, the past will be restored to me and I’ll be able to do the things I’m unable to do now.
Since I’m constantly traveling back and forth, I never spend much time here, in the present. And since I don’t remain here, I can’t carry out all those activities that I can actually perform because I have the gift that the injury has given me – the gift of time (I talk about it elsewhere). I can’t think of it as a gift that needs to be played with, that needs to be enjoyed; I can’t rejoice in it. A while ago, I felt happy to have time to do things that give me pleasure, and now I can’t find pleasure in doing them because I spend all my free time looking at the past and the future.
I should strive to have, unlike Janus, one face only and look only at the present, enjoying the beauty each day has to offer. I should neither yearn nor hope, but deliberately savor each day’s delicacy. I shouldn’t travel backward or forward; I should play with my gift.

​My friend Ellen and I have a routine WhatsApp videocall to sing together. Singing soothes us both, and I get a bonus: hearing her beautiful, pure tones. Before we sing, we usually take the opportunity to chat about every subject in the world: politics, children, family life, work – and in the era of COVID, illnesses. Last day, when we connected, she took the phone to the kitchen and showed me something in the pot that I couldn’t distinguish: something brown with orange pieces. She saw my puzzled expression and said, “I copied you! It’s lentil soup. It was so good, I’ve been practicing until I get it right.”
Before the injury, when Ellen used to get sick, I would always make lentil soup for her and her family and send it with Eric in a big jar. I’ve always loved lentil soup.I think of it as my vegetarian chicken soup – healthy and comforting.
Then she added, “It was yummy. It had such a sweet flavor,” and asked, “What herbs did you put?” I said I’d forgotten the seasoning. “Didn’t you write down the recipe?” she wondered. I answered I didn’t; it had been a long time since I’d made it, so I’d forgotten. “No matter,” she reassured me. “When COVID’s gone, we’ll make lentil soup in the kitchen. You’ll teach me how.” I protested I’d forgotten the seasoning (too long without making it, and I don’t write down the herbs I add), and besides, I couldn’t cook. But she said, “When COVID’s gone, you’ll be able to cook. And you’ll teach me. We’ll cook together. And it will be lots of fun!” And I pictured Ellen and me in the kitchen, the bright sunshine pouring through the window, and both standing up on two legs, stirring the soup in the pots, our left hands holding the wooden spoons.  

​Among the exercises I do, walking takes three days a week, every other day: Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. As I’ve explained before, I walk with the crutch from the dining room to the kitchen on Sundays because Eric doesn’t work and has time to help me. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I used to walk holding on to the bar. But since she noticed I was improving, my nurse aid suggested switching to the forearm crutch. I was apprehensive, but agreed nevertheless. So, I started walking with the crutch Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, two days inside the bar and one day outside – from the dining room to the kitchen.
Then, my view of my walking started alternating between what I judged was success (which led to happiness) and as lack of success (which led to discouragement). Whenever I thought I’d made a mistake, I’d say I was tired, and my nurse aid would retort, “No, you’re not tired!” When I sat down in the chair, Eric and my nurse aid would tell me to smile because my walking had been awesome, and would list the good things I’d done, but I felt that it was not awesome, so there weren’t reasons to smile.
Until Friday came. I walked inside the bar, and my nurse aid asked me how I thought I’d done. I answered, fair. And she got really mad. She gave me a long lecture about the need to appreciate my achievements and to approach and end my walking with a smile. And she ended with, “I’ll give you that: you’re a pouter, but not a quitter.” The lecture was humbling, but it fulfilled its goal; it made me change my attitude.
The next day, I decided to confront my fear and approach walking with a raised head. I’d keep all my nurse aid’s directions in my head and picture them one by one before I followed them: I’d look down at my feet and think before I took a step, and I’d wait and breathe instead of rushing. I’d listen to everything she’d told me. I’d no longer be a pouter. And I did well! And I didn’t think of any of the small things that went wrong, only of the big ones that went right. And I smiled a big smile and high fived Eric and my nurse aid. And I decided to change my approach to my exercises for as long as I’d last.