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SEX, SCARS & A SUPERHEROINE WITH SCOLIOSIS
BY KREMENA
EXCERPT
Life is a slow death and healthiness prolongs the process.
As
something of a sickly child, I was wrapped in cotton wool
and spoiled rotten by an army of grandmothers and grand-aunts.
Unlike my hard-to-kill tumbleweed counterparts, I was the
kind of kid to run home crying because of a tiny cut. I
broke my fingers a lot and I remember being taken to the
children’s ward at the hospital, where there were
peeling communist cartoon characters painted on the glass
window.
When
I fractured my right finger in a clumsy miscalculation of
acrobatics during a Physical Education class, my plaster
got dislocated. I had insisted on knitting while wearing
it, so I ended up with a deformed little finger. But what
is a crooked finger compared to a crooked spine? Actually,
they are surprisingly similar.
The
rib bump was first noticed by the hook-nosed-but-nice school
nurse.
Her
stethoscope is cold and her disinfectant odor engulfs me
as she matter-of-factly informs my grandmother of my suspected
condition.
“…
but she will outgrow it,” the nurse adds with re-assurance.
Even
Grandma resists the temptation to over-react. I am hardly
the Hunchback of Notre Dame at this stage so it is understandable
that everyone is reluctant to make a mountain out of my
molehill of a random rib deformity.
Actual
and perceived possibilities of certain occurrences are inversely
proportional.
Bad
posture is considered common amongst kids hence I am sent
off on my merry way with only a mild recommendation to attend
special straightening exercise classes.
Thus,
dusty gymnasium mattresses and foam mats full of cloudy
dirt clumps become a part of my life. I attend a couple
of times a week. The exercises are supposed to improve the
position of my spine by making the muscles stronger.
Where
there is dreaming and doing, despair and defeat do not reside.
The
classes are conducted by a communist coach of an Amazon
woman. Red-haired, wrinkled and full of detached discipline,
she operates from a tiny empty office situated in the enormous
concrete building that houses the gymnasium on the outskirts
of our tiny Eastern European town.
“…
And stretch,” she commands us. Like the other children,
I keep to myself. Only occasionally we eye each other.
Getting
there involves walking up the icy, lethally slippery steep
steps. I am aware of the imminent danger of falling and
cracking my head open like the spiky green hedgehog shell
of the wild heavy chestnuts; they thunder to the ground
from the height of the ancient towering trees with fan-like
leaves painted by autumn’s ochre palette. The cracked
green juicy shell reveals a glossy brown chestnut dipped
in the gleaming succulent oil of youth — it’s
a matter of days before it shrivels, its glossy skin becoming
dull and dusty and its juicy guts giving way to hollow dryness.
It was the implications of this life cycle that scared the
shit out of me, as it was a nagging reminder of mortality
— every human’s eventual fate.
I
knew scoliosis meant curvature of the spine. In its early
stages it’s entirely unnoticeable to the naked eye.
Therefore, for a haunted hypochondriac such as me, the condition
had mostly mental manifestations. Its tendency to alter
my concept of time meant that there was always the threat
of deterioration. My private terror of time became most
amplified at night, with my nightmare recurring each time
I attended appointments with orthopedic specialists. To
get to these appointments I took the train and waded through
knee-deep mud fields to reach the isolated hospital; then
followed excruciating queuing and waiting all day for a
10 minute visit that resulted in the declaration that the
curvature had increased, despite my jaded exercise efforts.
Then I would head home deflated as I sullenly surveyed the
shards of my world once again.
Poison
makes you spew
Razors cut you deep.
The options are a few
Since death is not like sleep.
So spare you the strife
By living out your life
Idiopathic
scoliosis means it has an unknown cause. It tends to worsen
during puberty as the skeletal structure grows. The curvature
is measured in degrees with angles drawn on the x-rays with
old-fashioned maths rulers. I started off with only a mild
deformity and a few twisted vertebrae — only 10 degrees.
With each visit to the blue-tiled chlorine-smelling hospital,
it increased slowly but surely, while proportionally causing
my morale to plummet to new depths.
I
struggled with my deformity-induced adolescent depression
and upgraded my fears after every visit with an intensity
increment of about 10 degrees each time. I felt extremely
sorry for myself, sulked and refused to do the exercises.
This led to guilt and even more terror; time was an insidious
enemy with every minute working against me. I felt I could
do nothing but face a future as a deformed cripple. This
was my ultimate fear and it led to private panic attacks
and tsunamis of despair, further crushing my fragile ego
throughout my early teens.
This
mental masochistic madness led to an obsession with people’s
backs. In my anguished anger, I would evaluate people’s
posture, desperately looking for an asymmetry. I sought
kindred spirits, or at least someone in a similar situation.
But the uniqueness of my condition created more hysteria,
which meant that I swept my scoliosis under the carpet as
much as I could. By hiding it, my internal insecurities
increased exponentially. Every aspect of my existence was
dominated by my desire to have a straight spine.
All
signs signaled that my earthly options were exhausted. Thus,
in the true style of desperation, I turned to spirituality
in a pitiful effort to satisfy my wish and surrender my
sickness to the skies. My religious origins are kind of
eclectic, consisting of my grandfather’s Russian Orthodox
Christianity, Pagan influences dating back to the Roman
empire origins of our tiny mining town and atheism caused
by almost half a century of Eastern European communism.
The pagan influence was most evident in the importance I
placed on talismans and amulets. I had drawers full of bells,
blue horses, beads tied with red string, pouches of garlic
cloves, furry rabbit tails and carved pieces of wood. I’d
carry them everywhere and carefully assess and analyze their
magic powers according to how much luck they brought me
in a game I played or what test grade I received at school.
Church
attendance was never regular, compulsory or considered to
be a social event. Instead it was a time of quiet reflection.
Pray
so that the followers are protected from each other.
The
church we went to was tiny, dark, cozy, and infused with
the smell of incense and burning wax. It was said to be
the home of a 16th century “miracle maker” who
was painted as a gaunt old man in monastery robes clutching
an ancient scroll of wisdom. Since I certainly needed a
miracle, I knew Saint Ivan Rilski was the man for the job,
so I thought I might ask just in case, the way I might ask
granddad to make me a tiara out of foil.
Beyond
the wooden doors, the foyer had a little cubicle, where
the church sold all manner of mystical merchandise: crucifix
necklaces that painted your neck green with oxidization
when worn on a hot day; long thin candles and pocket icons.
Inside, the flame flickers danced, reflected in the gold
paint of the Saint icons and brass candleholders.
I
placed my modest donations on this grandfather figure of
a saint’s glass-covered altars full of wilting flowers.
Then I added my own candle to the wax-covered holders and
wished for a miracle. I hoped my cents would bribe the heavens
into granting it. Grandma, in the meantime, stuck her candle
dramatically in the sand-filled tray in the corner —
with the icon image of a weeping saint above it, this symbolized
the graveyard, with the candles being the souls of the dead.
Love
to live and life will love you too.
Emerging
into the sunlight had a similar effect to emerging from
a cinema — somber stinging reality struck in the form
of blinding sunlight, signaling the end of this spirituality
stint.
My
church wish might have been a not-so-modest demand for a
miracle to alter the architecture of my spinal structure,
but my mother’s was always immigration to a Western
country. This wish was even more impossible than mine considering
the circumstances — almost non-existent funds and
visa applications that consumed decades with futile hopes.
“We
are going to be left to rot in this hell-hole for the rest
of our lives,” she’d say. “If we wait
much longer, all the doors will close.”
And
she was right; the border regulations were becoming stricter
and we were no longer eligible for refugee status.
The
opportunity cost of seeking security is opportunity itself.
Lots
of our friends had already made it to the Promised Land.
My worship of the West was idealistic at the very least.
My metaphorical window into what immigration might be like
was a magazine sent by somebody who had gone to America.
Its airbrushed beauty also made for a deceptively interactive
experience because it contained perfume samples —
they were the magic molecules of immigration as far as I
was concerned.
The
brain is the only body part that is most beautiful when
it is bloated, due to a diet of brilliant ideas.
Nonetheless
those immigration dreams were the reason why we got a steel-reinforced
mailbox with a glass label and a sturdy padlock. The only
mailbox maintained so well – a pretty suspicious move
which invited vandalism despite its design to withstand
it.
When
eventually our Australian visas were received after a seven-year-long
stressful selection-process spell that was seasoned with
superstition, they didn’t just look like lottery tickets
stuck in the passports.
The
implications of this event were too surreal for me to comprehend,
so I opted for excitement and optimism rather than the more
justified fear anyone with more sense would have felt. After
all, I would, for the first time in my life, be forced to
leave the safety of my grandmother’s home and be thrust
into an entirely unknown environment.
Denial,
like self-brainwashing, is a useful form of filtering out
reality.
I
was basically a weakling; a crooked indoor pot plant about
to be uprooted and re-planted in the barren but weedy topsoil
on the other side of the world — unfamiliar habitat
indeed. Not only would I need to withstand the winds and
the drought, but I would have to avoid being toppled over
by my curved spine as I desperately tried to grow roots
strong enough to reach the rewarding rich nutritious earth
deeper down.
Always
overestimate your stupidity and underestimate your intelligence.
The
most terrifying aspect was the insecurity of the unknown
— never quite knowing what would happen next. My main
difficulty was my inability to articulate and rationalize
my situation at the time.
And
I didn’t attempt to do so, instead I clutched onto
my one-legged Barbie for comfort. I had come across her
on a visit to my cousins and had refused to give her back
in true spoilt-brat style. Even though they let me keep
it, I was paranoid that I would have to give her back eventually,
which meant that I refused to let this pretty amputee out
of my sight under any circumstances.
Experience may be the best school but even there you
might find yourself repeating a class.
©
Kremena 2003
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