If poor surgical outcome can be likened to something, which I sometimes do doubt, it may just be a Tilt-a-Whirl. It’s definitely not a roller coaster, as is often said. Roller coasters have an easy symmetry—up, down, up, down. You know what’s next and, for the most part, when. But with this sudden and jarring health condition, I’m a child again in Ocean City, feet dangling from my seat on the Tilt-a-Whirl, one of my favorite Wonderland Pier rides, getting thrown from one side of the car to the other. And just when I think I’m stationary, with my little sister stabilized next to me, both of us white-knuckling the side rails, the car dips and circles and catapults me to the edge, bones crushed by the force of the thing, jointless and windblown into abandon.
There was a distinct joy to the pain then because I knew it would end. I knew that within a certain time, a time that was almost the same every time, the cars would slow and everything would fall into place. The dizziness would slip off and I would be upright and walking, only to wish I were still in that little circle of a car. The suspense was palpable–which there was a great deal of despite the pattern of the ride–and it was riveting. It held me in place with great anticipation. I was overcome and, now breathless for different reasons, with an entirely different measure of suspense, I dare to trust that it is still riveting—pinning me in place in far less pleasant ways, yes, but directing me intently and affording me a certain privilege: The opportunity to be a better host to inexplicability.
Existence is baffling, and maybe being in the thick of this unsought turbulence is a matter of accepting that the Tilt-a-Whirl of my 30s is the best Yogi Teacher I might ever have. As Henry Miller puts it, “Until we accept that life itself is founded in mystery we shall learn nothing.” How does accepting go? It has to do, I am slow to learn, with asking the right questions. Not “Why is the opposite of what was supposed to happen happening?” and “Why do doctors have no answers?” and “Will my body ever not be balky?” But maybe, “How might remaining riveted, simply and purely riveted, amidst all that is inscrutable, allow me to be sinewed by grace?” How might it force me into abandon again and again, rawboned and having no choice but to believe that, just as it was on those summer rides, I am encircled by something unfathomable and amazing and it holds me. There’s certainly not a lack of variety; the adult version of this boardwalk ride is showing me that there are several ways to remain still amidst thrashing and trick landings, and so several ways to be held. It’s a surprisingly difficult thing, giving over all one’s weight, unguarded and trusting. But maybe it’s the only thing?
One more question for now: How does being on the turn enable me to lend a hand to those who are also on a protracted ride, bodies undependable and foreign (which so easily can turn into bodies threatened and threatening)? It may just be a matter of endeavoring, feet dangling with anticipation, to describe again and then again what I know I need constant reminding of, that one sure thing among a gaggle of uncertainties: The inexplicable is not only tolerable, it is actually, regardless of what happens and how much it hurts, harmless. And we are all in this little car, riveted and ready, together.
Wrens on a Wire by Amanda Varrella 