Sitting Pretty

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Sitting Pretty Page 12

by Rebekah Taussig


  Within two months of starting the teaching gig, I develop a searing, burning pain running down my left leg. A few months later, my lower back starts aching and throbbing. A few months after that, my legs start clenching and spasming so severely that eventually, I can’t unclench them. I try to stand, and my left leg jerks backward, my heel pressing into my bum. Eventually my right leg won’t straighten either. As soon as I get into bed each night, my body snaps into the fetal position, like a marionette controlled by a force entirely outside of myself—I can’t physically pry my body into an easy, relaxed position. When I sit up in the morning, the pain radiating through my lower back and down into my legs takes my breath away.

  And yet, I feel guilty taking days off. I feel silly writing “back pain” into the little window on the substitute teacher request form. I picture the badass lady in the office reading the words—“back pain”—and chuckling. Yeah, we all have back pain, honey. I picture my dad taking only half a sick day in his forty-three years of work. I grew up to believe that only negligent, lazy employees ask for sick days unless they literally can’t dress themselves and get to work. Technically I can get out of bed, get dressed, and out the door. I’m slower and need help to pull up my pants, but this is my new normal. I will show them I’m not a burden. I’m the “PH” with something to offer. I wasn’t a bad hire. I will bring more than I take.

  * * *

  I write this like it’s something that happened a while ago—in the distant past—but this story is still unfolding in real time. Every Monday through Friday, I put on my Adult Working Lady costume. Most days, I think I pass. I keep up, manage, do the tasks (sometimes really well, even), and have good days. I might be getting a little better at putting in for a sick day, at giving 90 percent to a task that used to take 120 percent of me.

  At the same time, my body is constantly reminding me: this system was not made for us. My body is exhausted, stretched, strained, worn down by the speed and pace and particular demands of being a Full-Time Working Woman—in regular ways most of us feel, but also in the ways unique to my specific disabilities. I’ve lost mobility since I started this job. I’ve developed a cyst between two vertebrae in my lower back that has invited new levels of pain and spasticity in my body. I’ve put extra levels of strain on my organs. I feel it from my swollen feet to the twitch of my right eye. I’ve gotten UTIs, started taking more pain meds and getting steroid injections into my spine to force my body to relent and obey. What a brutal trade-off.

  I’m torn, because being disabled and having any job at all is a gift that defies statistics—that counters the very real lived experience of so many folks with bodies that don’t fit. I don’t want to fritter away that gift or express ingratitude for being invited to participate. Nor do I want to suggest that many employers (mine included) wouldn’t do whatever is required to accommodate my disabled body. So why don’t these “special accommodations” feel more empowering? Why do they remain so hard to swallow?

  For starters, there’s a contradiction between saying a workplace is inclusive even as it participates in the larger cultural values that celebrate everything a disabled body is not. There’s something unsettling about offering accommodations for an “exceptional” body when the entire system surrounding that body is built on the assumption that more and faster and harder and higher is fundamentally, inherently superior. When you applaud your employees only for arbitrary measurement of work—arriving early, leaving late, never taking sick days or time off, or showing up on the weekend—when you always push for more—production, happy hours, publications, softball teams, cases, meetings, tasks, involvement, spirit, extra—you do not demonstrate an appreciation for those who have a need, who say no, enforce boundaries, or require flexibility—the very stuff of accommodations masked under different names.

  In some ways, “special accommodations” insist that the current setup is just fine, thanks. They cling to the idea that only a few outliers can’t fit into the mold, ignoring the fact that even those who can make it work might be better off with a more flexible model. The very notion of “special accommodations” relies on the belief that really, there are only a few who don’t slip easily into the narrow mold of a nine-to-five schedule, five days a week (clock in! clock out!), getting “sick” only a specific number of times each year, recovering from giving birth and being ready to separate from a newborn baby in a predetermined set of days. So many of us agree to these rules, even as we know we don’t thrive there. We’re rewarded when we fit tidily into the parameters set before us, so we pretend, mask, and go along with it as best we can. Those who simply cannot fit are highlighted as outsiders who need something extra to make it work. Instead of looking at the larger, varied collection of humans on a team and creating a structure that accounts for their real experiences, needs, desires, and motivations, so often work systems prefer to dispense the smallest portions of flexibility to the ones who simply cannot fake it any longer (or put up the biggest fit and have a lawyer to back them up). I’m glad employers are required by law to dispense those small portions of flexibility. It’s an invaluable change. It’s also entirely limited by the larger environment—the larger cultural values surrounding work and the people in charge—that houses it.

  When a system rolls its eyes at those who don’t “pull their weight,” then offers to lighten their load, you don’t trust it. These practices are at odds with “accommodations” and create a confusing, shameful space to work out what it means to take care of your body. Accommodations may be offered in this kind of environment, but they aren’t categorized as admirable; they’re a last resort, an unfortunate option, a generous gift bestowed upon the ones who regrettably need something. How many employees feel safe asking for something that seems to diminish their value in the eyes of the people evaluating them?

  The needs of my disabled body seem clearer. People see me in my wheelchair, and they expect accommodations will follow closely behind (although most don’t usually imagine much beyond elevators and ramps). But I believe this Full-Time Working Adult system punishes many more bodies than just mine—bodies in pain, bodies swaddled in depression and anxiety, bodies that get pregnant, need to breastfeed, have periods, get cramps and headaches, bodies that move and process slower than others, have different eating rhythms, need naps, breaks, longer toilet times, more inclusive toilet spaces—and so the list unfurls. A system that measures our worth by an arbitrary amount of work that our bodies and minds are supposed to be able to produce within narrow parameters of time and space punishes all of us. We all eventually sag under its unsustainability.

  Why are we so enamored with this vision of Hard Work before and above any other model? I think we’ve built our understanding of work on an unquestioning faith in a twisted version of “survival of the fittest.” We’ve misunderstood this phrase to mean, Whoever is strongest, whoever competes the best, whoever works harder than anyone else, whoever is willing to be the most aggressive wins! But not even Darwin himself touted “survival of the fittest” as the guiding principle of evolution. The species that survived through the unexpected twists and turns over the long haul were the most adaptable species, like the peppered moth. During the Industrial Revolution, factories in England polluted surrounding wooded areas. They covered the region with gritty black soot, and lichen-covered trees that were once white were now dark. An entire species of moths that had survived before the soot were now at risk with this unexpected turn. The pale wings that once camouflaged them against the lichen made the moths easy targets against the sooty backdrop. Within this species were a number of darker, “peppered” moths. While their light-winged peers were more at risk, the peppered moths were perfectly suited for the change in environment, and their unusual trait was the very thing that guaranteed their species’ survival.

  If disabled bodies did nothing else for the human race (which of course, they do), they would ensure our variety, and by extension, our adaptability. We’re in the middle of a transition right n
ow, not terribly unlike the shift brought about by the Industrial Revolution. For a while, we’ve been covering our ears, putting our hands over our eyes, and singing loudly over the reality that so many of us have no easy method of paying for these bodies of ours. More than ever, we need to be adaptable, flexible, and imaginative, but this, right here, is an invaluable perspective the disabled person has to offer: we have our thumbs on the heartbeat of adaptability, we know how to imagine a more flexible world; our very existence, our everyday lives, are an exercise in imagination. We are surrounded by reminders that all our bodies have limits and thrive in different environments. The world we’ve built, by and large, ignores this. I can’t help but wonder: What might happen in all of our work spaces if we put aside the make-believe prototypical worker we inherited from the Industrial Revolution and brought the disabled body to the center?

  We already know what we can gain from hard work. My dad is a testament to this gift. Me and my siblings were safe and secure in the little nest he built for us. He devoted the majority of his waking hours in his twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and part of his sixties toward protecting this. We had food; a house with heat, water, and electricity; and insurance that guaranteed we would be cared for when we got strep throat or cancer. These are certainly gifts many people don’t have (even those who are out there working very hard). Now that I’m older, though, I wonder how much my dad lost in his unwavering commitment to that job. He had so many children to support, one of them sick and disabled, and a wife with a kidney disease—did he ever let himself entertain the idea of switching careers? Was he ever dreaming of a different life when his alarm clock blared him awake at 4:30 in the morning for the nine-hundredth day in a row? Maybe he did but was too scared to risk the security this setup gave us. As a child, I never considered this, but as I worked on this chapter, I called him and asked him, “Did you ever worry about losing your job at the bank?”

  “Oh, I was terrified,” he said. He is matter-of-fact in his delivery, as you might imagine. It wasn’t a dramatic confession, but a simple statement of fact. “I had no idea how I would take care of you all if I didn’t have that job.” Growing up, I never picked up on a whiff of the fear he was holding. He was only ever the steady, stoic Tim Taussig I’d known since the womb. He didn’t exist outside the rhythm of working at the bank. But, you guys. He retired on February 25, 2016, and the man has been made new. He’s chatty on the phone, he watches shows with my mom, his movements are light, he takes every one of his children (all six of us), their partners (make that another six), and grandchildren (the latest count is twenty-four) out for lunch on their birthdays. I hadn’t really noticed his absence before, but now that he’s here, I feel his presence.

  My dad was my first, most formative picture of Work. He embodied everything the prototypical worker is expected to be. But I have to wonder what parts of himself he would have been able to keep and nourish, how he might have flourished, if he’d been allowed a more imaginative structure. I can almost see it—a world where the breathing, bleeding, exhausted, stretched, and strained human body is invited into the circle, allowed to exist in all its variant forms. What flexibility, what efficiency, what connections, what salves might we find there?

  6

  Feminist Pool Party

  I hated going to birthday parties when I was little. Especially the sleepover kind. The invitation would arrive in the mail two weeks before, and my mom would put it straight on the fridge. An invitation means you’re included, right? And who doesn’t want that? But the small paper invite with cartoon girls dancing beneath aggressively bright balloons and riotous pink confetti haunted me, reminding me what was looming ahead. Samantha is eight! Join us for pizza and swimming and relentless little-girl screaming into the wee hours of the morning! I begged my mom to make up excuses so I wouldn’t have to go.

  Parties were vivid reminders that I didn’t fit. When I saw the sparkly balloon dancers on the fridge, I imagined all the girls from my class sharing lip gloss in the van waiting to go to the pool while the birthday girl’s dad slowly bumped me down the front stairs (What do I say to a DAD? Where do I look?). I saw all the girls jumping on each other in the water, easy and light, graceful and wild. I saw myself trying to act casual and chill, gripping the edge of the pool. I saw myself frantically rushing through my nighttime bathroom routine while all the girls waited in a line outside the door, knocking every so often, “Are you okay in there Bekah?” I saw all their cute jammies with tiny ruffles on the sleeves next to me in my giant T-shirt with the rip up the side (it was so soft, though!) and big sister’s gym shorts hanging down to my knees. I saw all their fairy feet and delicate ankles next to my swollen toes. (Should I cover them with socks? But no one else is wearing socks to sleep!) I saw myself skipping soda with pizza, terrified I’d wet my sleeping bag during the night. I saw myself pretending to fall asleep in my spot next to the wall while the girls sang along to Grease 2 and stayed up talking about the boys in our class.

  Not being invited at all came with a distinct bite, but an invitation meant that I would need to contort myself into a role that never seemed to fit, an exercise I found to be—more than anything else—exhausting. And after all that effort, I still usually left the party feeling like a drag on all the good party times. The girls screaming in the pool had something beautiful. I didn’t want to disrupt or pollute that. It was plain to see they were better off without waiting on the one bumping down the stairs with a dad, without having to worry about the one clinging to the edge of the pool. I could try to pretend, but it felt crystal clear: I didn’t belong. This, I believed, was a fact—spoken from on high, the hand the universe dealt, the way things were and would be. It never occurred to me that there could or should be a different way.

  I wish these feelings were specific to my childhood, memories to marvel at like an artifact from the distant past. But even now, there are plenty of days I feel my thirty-plus self transform into eight-year-old Rebekah, ready to withdraw for the sake of the group.

  * * *

  Like always, Micah and I are late to the party, but the hosts meet us at the bottom of the stairs and help Micah lift me up two flights. I grip his forearm as we ascend and give him a squeeze. It says, I’m glad you’re here with me. This is our first time visiting our friends’ loft, and I feel cared for beforehand when they text us ideas for navigating its less inaccessible entrance. This old warehouse was only recently converted into hip, open-floor lofts with the original brick walls and cast-iron beams still on display. So cool! I’m wearing my new, black ankle boots that hide the scarred part of my feet, my favorite-fitting, black jeans that have some stretch to hug my tiny legs and pull up over my soft tummy, and the slouchy tee reserved for occasions when I really want to look great without looking like I’m trying to look great. These are the friends who look like they lounged out of a dreamy ad campaign—effortlessly lovely. Do you have these friends, too? I take obnoxious amounts of time getting ready before we hang out with them. When we get to the top of the stairs, I hike up my black jeans, pulling them above the deep crease they’re making in my belly.

  We’re handed fizzy mojitos with freshly muddled mint as we pass through the front door. I give Micah my feeling-fine-and-fancy look, and the ice tinkles in our glasses as we trail behind our tour guide through the narrow hallways. “Do you think they have any accessible units?” I ask Micah, starry-eyed and impressed by the high ceilings and big windows. He shoots me a skeptical look. “Maybe even just a first-floor unit?” We pass the small bathroom on the way back to the kitchen, and I make a note to slow down on my fluid intake; there’s no way I’ll be able to get into that bathroom, let alone have a safe pee with a mojito buzz on.

  A group of our friends are gathered around a coffee table of treats, lounging on the sofa and sitting on the floor, backs against a cement wall. I stay in my wheelchair and cross my legs, staying put in my designated accessible spot. I never look more disabled than when I try to move from here to the
re without my wheelchair, and I’m suddenly not feeling in the mood to expose that vulnerability on this posh set of dazzling people.

  I’m sipping my mojito and glancing down at my phone, fruitlessly scrolling through the building’s website for first-floor units (and quickly realizing I’d never be able to afford this place even if they had a space I could access, which they definitely do not), as I pick up on an animated conversation.

  “God, I wish I would have told him to fuck off,” Ryan says, shaking his head, his arm draped over his wife Beth’s shoulder.

  “It wouldn’t have made anything better,” Beth says. “I mean, you have to imagine the level of creep in a person who thinks it’s okay to yell at a woman across a parking lot just because she’s wearing yoga pants. And honestly? It happens all the time. I’m used to it.” She’s brushing it off, like she’s bolstered by calluses she’s built from a lifetime of being catcalled by male strangers.

  The other women in the room emphatically roll their eyes with her, and the men listen. I nod vigorously.

  “I’ve just started hollering back,” Grace says, her eyes sparking. “The other day, this guy started following me around the grocery store, muttering nasty things to me, and I was like, ‘No. You say that so everyone can hear you! So your girlfriend in aisle five can hear you! Say that again, loud and proud!’” She reenacts the scene, and the other women are laughing knowingly, in solidarity. It sounds cathartic.

  The other two women in the circle share catcalling stories of their own, and each narrative is met with a supportive cloud of understanding murmurings. I throw in phrases like “Wow,” and “Good for you! That’s some bullshit!”

 

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