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Amy F. Quincy Author/Freelance Writer

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amyfquincy

Freelance Writer

Fall Cleaning

fileI’ve never felt more like a real writer than since I stopped writing.

Not really stopped, of course. I still write this weekly post, after all. But I stopped writing with the disorganized intensity that comes with writing a book. I can breathe again. The little black cloud that has been following me around for years — consuming all my thoughts, making me feel guilty whenever I did something, anything, else — has disappeared. I want everything to feel fresh and clean after the storm. It’s time to get organized.

It’s been feeling like Christmas morning lately. When the Office Depot or Office Max delivery truck pulls up, I get so giddy it might as well be Santa’s sleigh. I’ve been purchasing file cabinets, Manila folders and desk organizers. I admit it, the thought of establishing so much order makes me unnaturally happy. My mother’s unsolicited psychoanalysis of me is that I have a need to exert control over my surroundings. I say neatly labeled green and purple files are just pretty.

Besides, she does it too. She’s next door right now, surrounded by piles of books, separating them into piles to keep or give away. The closets are next. The difference, she would say, is that she has no delusions about why she’s doing it. Feeling a little down? Lacking a good night’s sleep? Something bothering you? Time to clean. I prefer to think I’m just a highly organized person. Mom would say I’m in denial.

Either way, writer or no, both sides of the house are looking pretty good. And, it must be said, there’s something very writerly about having a file marked “Ideas” in which to put unfinished stories, random thoughts or a beautiful sentence that comes to you at 3:00 in the morning. And when I’m ready to submit some story for publication, I’ll go to the file marked “Places to Submit.” That is, until the next book idea takes hold of me. The clouds’ll be building and the wind picking up soon now.

Benefits of Getting Organized

  • Save Time – How long does it take you to leave the house in the morning? Stop wasting time running around from one end to the other looking for misplaced items.
  • Save Money – Penalties for late payments is money down the drain. Planning a meal will save you money on expensive last minute take out and wasted groceries.
  • Reduce Stress – You’ll feel better about your environment and have more time for yourself or your family. Organization creates relaxation.
  • Increase Productivity – Perform with increased efficiency. Missed appointments or deadlines will be a thing of the past, leaving you better able to achieve your goals.

5

Birthdays

photo 3Today is my mom’s birthday. I’ll go ahead and relieve the suspence now– I’m not throwing her a surprise party. I made that mistake one year before finding out she hates surprise parties. She does like the attention to her birthday, I think. Perhaps just not that much concentrated attention.

Some people would rather forget the anniversary of their birth entirely. Why? We’re all so excited for our birthdays when we’re young. What happens? Remember, it’s not easy to get old, but there are far too many who never got the gift you have been given — the gift of growing older. Happy Birthday, Mom.

photo 4And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

There was a star danced, and under that I was born. ~William Shakespeare

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. ~ Mark Twain

May you live all the days of your life. ~ Jonathan Swift

m2_2There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. ~George Santayana

Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative. ~ Maurice Chevalier

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. ~ Reverend Larry Lorenzoni

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty. ~ Georges Clemenceau

The heyday of woman’s life is the shady side of fifty. ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton

photo 1Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. ~ French Proverb

At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgement. ~Benjamin Franklin

Pleased to look forward, pleased to look behind,
And count each birthday with a grateful mind. ~ Alexander Pope

Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow. ~ Margaret Fuller

4

Unpathed Waters

dianaTo unpathed waters, to undreamed shores.

~William Shakespeare

So this week, I couldn’t get enough of Diana Nyad, the first person to complete a marathon swim from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida without a shark cage. I guess I’m a sucker for those kinds of feel good, “follow your dream”, “it’s never too late” stories.

If you paid attention too, you already know it took 110 miles (or 53 hours), she’s 64, and this was her fifth attempt. Her first try had been at the age of 28. The rest, after the age of 60. The dream never died. Laid dormant for decades, but never went away. I read one article (by Chris Erskine of the LA Times) that called her the High Priestess of the Land of Try-Try Again. I like that. I wish I’d thought of it.

Fall seven times, stand up eight. ~Japanese proverb

But I know about nagging feelings that won’t go away. I have one. I won’t call it a dream. Maybe just a fantasy. A daydream, really. I want to become fluent in Spanish. It’s comical I know, since oftentimes my English can’t be understood, but there you have it. And I believe if you have a dream, or a recurring, nagging something that won’t be forgotten, you probably should be doing it. I used to think I yearned to know Spanish because some sexy Latin lover was going to whisk me away to foreign lands. Now I think it’s more likely an adopted dog that only knows Spanish is in my future. The point is, I’ve added it to my to do list. I have a friend in her fifties, learning to play the flute. She just wants to. You don’t have to know the reason. There doesn’t even have to be a reason. Just start.

You should do whatever it is that calls to you. If you need more inspiration, check out Diana Nyad’s TED talk in 2011 which she ends by paraphrasing Mary Oliver. This led me to look up the poem, but first I’ll close with a quote from the swimmer herself. “You tell me what your dreams are. What are you chasing? It’s not impossible. Name it.”

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

~ Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

4

New Routines

mornin1I wasn’t sure about my new neighborhood when I first moved in. I missed seeing the ocean every morning. I missed hearing the seagulls overhead. Frankie seemed to miss his dog buddies. We hadn’t met a lot of new dogs or their owners on our walks at Mom’s.

“How’s it going?” a friend asked me.

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I might as well be in Mandarin.”

Now, don’t take offense if you live in Mandarin (or some other suburb of town). I’m not trying to pull a beach superiority complex on you. I just mean, I felt very far away. I moved half a mile down A1A, but when you don’t drive, it might as well be across town.

There were no more drop-ins at my friend Michele’s for coffee. No cruising down to the corner in my power chair for dinner out or a book signing. And no trips with Frankie to Jarboe Park to watch the ducks. Frankie and I did discover a park here, but all we can watch are the homeless people.

When I thought about my old morning routines, I felt sad. Then I thought about another, more major time of loss in my life. I compared the experiences and wondered. Is it possible I was more depressed about my move to Jax Beach than my move to a wheelchair? It sounds ludicrous yes, until you realize — it’s all about acceptance.

Everyone said I’d accepted my place in the disabled world quite well. I think I’ve figured out how. I mean, what choice did I have? Clinging to what might have been is no way to live. Spending the rest of my days woulda-coulda-shoulda-ing is not for me. And there’s the answer. I needed to let go of my past to be able to enjoy my present.

I had spent my first month here trying to enjoy my old routines. I could get to the ocean, but I hated crossing Third Street. I tried to make it to Michele’s, but it took so long now I had to leave by sunrise. And I knew better than to attempt to hit the corner spots for dinner unless I had a death wish.

When I stayed in my own neighborhood and developed a couple of new routes, we met some folks. We met Steve walking Sage, Larry with Luna, and Betty and Ed who don’t appear to have a dog, but drink coffee on their porch when we pass by around 7:45. The dogs, walkers and cyclists are fewer and farther between now, but they’re out here. It’s just taking longer to meet them. I’m trying to be patient. Frankie is beside himself when anyone stops to chat, especially with a dog. He’s dog-starved.

Of course, it helps me appreciate what I have when glimpsed through someone else’s eyes.

“It reminds me of the Keys back here,” said my friend Jamie, looking at the pool. “If I lived here, I’d be out here all the time.”

Waiting
Waiting

So I’ve started eating my breakfast out there. Bella and Frankie line up by the door every morning, part of our new routine. It’s ridiculous that they both wait for me to open the door when there’s a perfectly good dog door right there. But Bella, in true cat form, only uses it when no one’s looking. I know she’s figured it out, because she appears and disappears mysteriously. She probably doesn’t want to appear graceless or un-ladylike getting her rather portly body through the opening. I have no idea what goes through Frankie’s head or why he waits for me to let him out this one time when he flies in and out the dog door regularly.

So, I’m enjoying my mornings again. Only here, it’s chlorinated instead of salt water, cardinals instead of seagulls and retirees instead of twenty-something surfers. It all reminds me of a plaque that hangs in Michele’s garden, “Bloom where you are planted.” So, you know what? I’m blooming.

My breakfast buddy
My breakfast buddy
4

Spontaneity

dreamstimecomp_17842892Yesterday, two friends stopped by, separately and unexpectedly, and the blog post I had half-finished stayed that way.

This is something I find particularly difficult – letting go of my plans, giving up a measure of control. But life is more fun that way.

When was the last time you veered off a pre-planned course? Took a left turn instead of a right? Try not following the map for a change and see what happens.

“The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You’re allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.”

 ~Jennifer Aniston

“Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It’s unbridled, it’s unplanned, it’s full of surprises.”

~Erma Bombeck

“Our spontaneous action is always best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”

~Jane Austen, Emma

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.”

~Will Borden

1

Tough Stuff

I recently attended another Southern Slam Quad Rugby Tournament.  The difference this year was that our Brooks team was split up — all the teams were made up of various other teams. I have a hard enough time following the action as it is. I missed the color-coordinated uniforms clearly identifying who to root for, but I hear it’s more fun for the athletes — meeting and playing with different people from all over. If you’ve never checked out the sport – you don’t know what you’re missing. Take a look at my post from last year, complete with photos and video. I’ve also changed the title from Tough Guys to Tough Stuff in honor of the couple ponytails I saw in there swinging.

Original Post:

One quadriplegic furiously chases down another as the two men move from their locked positions. Their wheelchairs race and then WHACK!  The clang of metal on metal rings out and one wheelchair crashes on its side, its occupant suspended helplessly. In any other setting, this would bring people running to assist, but here, a referee casually walks over and picks up the ball before someone rights the dangling player.

This is Quad Rugby, a.k.a. Murderball, and it’s all just part of the action. And having been to several games, I can tell you — there’s plenty of action. The rules are pretty simple. Each team tries to get the ball through the goal on their respective side of the court. The offense passes or carries the ball, while the defensive team blocks. There are fouls, rebounds and a lot of back and forth. It’s kind of like basketball, but without the hoops or dribbling. And, in my opinion, it’s more exciting. But don’t take my word for it. Check out this video of the Brooks Bandits (Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation Program) playing in the recent 5th Annual Southern Slam Quad Rugby Tournament.

It’s disconcerting at first, watching people in wheelchairs slam into each other. But then you realize, these guys are defying stereotypes and redefining what it means to be handicapped. While a friend and I watched an away game in Atlanta at one of the premier rehab hospitals in the country, a woman next to us had just met the parents of a 16 year-old who’d been severely injured in an accident. “Bring him down here,” she told them in the elevator that led from patient rooms to the indoor arena. “He needs to see what’s possible.”

I read a memoir by disabled cartoonist John Callahan in which he says he never forgot his first sight of wheelchair basketball players darting around and popping wheelies in the halls of his hospital. It gave him hope through the dark days to come. And the message? Life goes on. Goes on well. In fact, in the disabled world, inviting the Quad Rugby guys to your party is like inviting the football players back in high school. They’re the cool kids on the disabled schoolyard.

For those of you not in the know, quadriplegia means without good use of any of the four limbs (not to be confused with paraplegia, the loss of use of two limbs, usually by spinal cord injury.) Quadriplegics come in all shapes and sizes with greatly differing injuries and abilities. For example, I’m a quadriplegic. And I couldn’t catch or throw a ball if my life depended on it. Unless it was a beach ball. And even that’s questionable. Plus, I’m sure my double vision would get in the way if anyone was foolish enough to let me out on a court. There are quads who can walk (usually brain injured,) but many have suffered a spinal cord injury where the break was high enough to affect hand motor function or grip strength. I’ve seen double amputees playing Quad Rugby and one gentleman in Atlanta, wheeling his chair with a duct-taped elbow, making the former massage therapist in me cringe at the repetitive motion injury he was undoubtedly causing. Then I remembered — he has bigger problems to worry about.

Regardless of the difference in our abilities, we’re all disabled. We want, like anyone else, to belong somewhere, be part of something. These guys like being physical again and playing as part of a team. I enjoy the individual sports, like horseback riding or swimming, but with the camaraderie of a group of people to who, in many ways, I can relate. Everyone wants to look in the mirror of society and see themselves reflected there. And what you get from these games, or any adaptive sport, either as a participant or a spectator, is the sense that life is not over. Not by a long shot.

3

At Noon on Tuesday (I Mean Wednesday)

There’s something wonderful about drinking in the middle of afternoon. It’s so forbidden. So frowned upon. I love it. I guess that’s why I like the lyrics to that poppy Sheryl Crow song, “All I Wanna Do.” You know, “… is have some fun.”

Well, I did it. Popped open the champagne one afternoon last week with my friend, Diane. I finished (with her invaluable help) editing my memoir, Misadventures of a Happy Heart: A Memoir of Life Beyond Disability. 

I had no idea the whole process was going to take forever. My eyes are open now. I don’t see how people write second novels. Unless, it’s like childbirth and you forget the pain amid the joys of parenthood/authorship. I’m obviously just guessing.

But, it was a feat worth celebrating. Of course, this had me looking up quotes on celebration. As usual, I found a bunch I liked, so I’ll let you choose your favorite. Don’t forget to make time for your own celebrations. Not just birthdays and anniversaries, but the days you had a little more to do with. And, don’t be afraid to toot your own horn.130807_0003

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” ~Thomas J. Peters

“Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we will die.” ~Dave Matthews

“The year you were born marks only your entry into the world. Other years where you prove your worth, they are the ones worth celebrating.” ~Jarod Kintz

“A good time occurs precisely when we lose track of what time it is.” ~Robert Farrar Capon

“Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living.” ~Sydney Smith

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” ~Oprah Winfrey

 

7

House of Chairs

130801_0015 My mom has a chair problem. By that I mean to say she hoardes chairs. Or perhaps I should say she “collects” them. Hoarding implies she’s just days away from suffocating under a pile of dirty laundry and banana peels. It’s not that bad. She only has 24. 

I began noticing we had an inordinately large number of chairs when I first moved in. Since then, she’s acquired three more. Mind you, these are only the outside chairs. I can’t begin to think of the inside chairs.

130801_0017In her defense, most of them were free. Usually, they’re in someone’s trash by the side of the road. While I think, “they must be throwing them out for a reason,” Mom maintains that they’re perfectly fine. She watches all the salvage shows on HGTV. And you know the saying: One man’s rusted wrought iron is another man’s home-improvement-project-that-never-happens-so-it-sits-by-the-pool-growing-rustier.

130801_0026The pretty red ones were acquired last week on a rare shopping outing. My mom agreed to take me to that OCDer’s heaven — Bed, Bath and Beyond. I could spend hours in the place just daydreaming about reorganizing my closet or checking out shelf liner. My mom, on the other hand, hates it and spends the entire time waiting on me up front, sitting in displays of patio furniture. This particular day, I’d only made it halfway through the kitchen gadgets when I received her telepathic message of distress. “Let’s go. Now.” She eyed the rainbow of magnetic bag clips in my hand, but refrained from saying, “Do you really need that?”

130801_0013I know she’s glad she refrained, given the irony of what happened next. Having run into Home Depot for an extension cord, she came out with chairs number 23 and 24.

“What?” she said when I looked incredulous. “They were on sale.”

130801_0010Like anyone in the throes of addiction, she passed through phases of anger and denial. Once I began counting the chairs, she became defensive.

“You can’t count the cheap stackables! Don’t count the outdoor dining chairs. Those are part of a set.”

130801_0018Oh, I see. Part of a set. For the record, we have 14 chairs, not counting the cheap stackables or the outdoor dining chairs. They’re still chairs by the way, but whatever.

We’re ready to host a party of 50 at a moment’s notice.

130802_0003When I went to take a picture of the chairs poolside, I noticed they’d all been moved. Much like a kindergartner moves food around on his plate, my mother had spread chairs all over the yard in groups of two and three, hoping to disguise the sheer volume of seating choices available. I guess that she’s aware enough to try to hide this is progress. And after all, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

10

Putting the Able in Disabled

DSC_1212 I went rock climbing last weekend.

I can just see my friend Mary’s face, open-mouthed in disbelief. And it is unbelievable in a funny sort of way. My mom burst out laughing when I told her I was going. “Of course you are,” she said. Because so far, (mostly with Brooks) I’ve played tennis, billiards and power soccer. I’ve waterskied, snow skied, surfed, bowled and ridden a horse —  all since I’ve been in the wheelchair. Now I can add rock climbing to the list.

It’s not bravery, though Mary would disagree. (And I suppose next to her, I am brave. Sorry, Mary.) But really, these adaptive sports have gear that keep you much safer than you’d be if you were doing the real thing. And I wasn’t hanging off a cliff. We’re in Florida, after all. It was a rock climbing gym.

But I do have a whole new respect for rock climbers — indoors or out. In addition to revealing just how out of shape I am, out of my safety harness, it looked scary! I didn’t reach for hand or footholds, (I never could’ve managed that) but many people in the group did. I was in a comfortable swing compared to these daredevils. Look at this picture to really get the idea. That’s 45 feet up!130720_0004

It was all part of a special rock climbing clinic with Mark Wellman, two-time Paralympian and the first paraplegic to climb the faces of El Capitan and Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. The night before we hit the climbing gym, we heard Mark’s story of the rock climbing accident that left him paralyzed and his inspiring road to recovery. Then we watched his film, Beyond Barriers, in which various disabled athletes take part in some pretty extreme sports. Imagine watching three disabled mountain climbers, one of them blind! There was also a girl born with just one leg, who surfed standing up on a customized piece of PVC pipe. There was a paraplegic handglider, paraplegic diver and a quadriplegic sailor who operated his special sailboat with just a mouth stick! All further proof to me that there’s a spirit inside some that just won’t be quieted. That most determined and adventurous people are that way regardless of what happens to them. It’s attitude not circumstance. They’ll find a way.

In truth, I wished the event and the message could’ve been a little more inclusive. Most quadriplegics could not attend because they lack grip in the hands and fingers. I don’t know the particulars of climbing equipment and it must have been considered, but most other adaptive sports have gloves that attach a person’s hands to any bar necessary. And watching amazing athletes may not reach those of us who are far from athletic. Personally, I’d rather inspire someone just to get off the couch, get out of the house or make a new friend!

IMG_0563
With Mark Wellman

But that’s the great thing about the Brooks Program. There’s something for everyone, from extreme sports to eating fries and gabbing at the local bowling alley. In the end, it’s about breaking the mold and challenging the stereotype of what a disabled person can and can’t do. Plus, I get to watch people’s faces when I tell them I went rock climbing. Priceless.

12

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