Wednesday Wobble ~ Imagination

When I was a kid, I loved pretending that my bike was a motorcycle, epic (and quite realistic, I might add!) sound effects provided by yours truly! Wind in my face, imagination flying!...fast forward a whack of years and it has been a good decade since I've been able to ride a bike, thanks to Bev, the vestibular disorder I live with! (she’s a very difficult renter! ;)

I was pondering my use of my imagination as a kiddo and how life can have a tendency to drastically happen as we get older, and we can find ourselves stuck within really difficult realities and forget about the gift of our imagination.... we can get trapped in a storyline of resentment, or in the clutches of comparison, narratives on repeat of "if only" and "why me"....Over time, though, I discovered that beneath these narratives, vastly shaped by the culture we live in, awaits a deep grief longing to lead us towards our imagination through pausing long enough to really pay attention to all of life that surrounds us, readying to take us on a journey towards a new way of seeing and being ever so slowly.

Parenting young kiddos as a single mom with a vestibular disability was incredibly difficult. I often found (and still do at times—though now I have help from my wife) myself trapped in the feeling of guilt, and the narrative of ‘I can’t do what I want to be able to do for and with my kids’, and my harshest critic (myself) kept yapping at me the cultural storyline of “never enough…”….

This brings me to the moment of riding my trike I bought for myself, the fear that the bike was tipping (because that’s what it felt like in my vestibular lacking body!), my son riding alongside me, and my daughter behind me on her scooter yelling, "you're doing great, mom! You're not tipping!" and "mom, you don’t have to lean to the side like that, but you can if you want to!" as I yelled back with a big smile on my face, "I'm not trying to! It's my body's reaction to the feeling of tipping!"...

I realized in that moment that my disability/chronic illness added to my kiddos imagination something that I hadn’t cultivated in my own.... as I was repeating the think thoughts of frustration towards myself feeling like I was failing my kids, my kid’s imagination was cultivating a story of empathy and willingness to encourage their mama trying my darndest to bike! The new sound effects were the noises my being makes when pressure feels my ears and head as the vestibular discomfort kicks in, but why not pretend that’s the sound of my engine, as I feel the breeze on my face, riding my orange, three-wheeler “motor bike” with my kids at my side…. It was such a beautiful experience and, yes, it was also really hard on my body, but I can let that be okay, and then have a nap!

I have begun to lean into the grief of my body struggling, and I have also begun to tap into the beauty of my imagination inviting me out of the boring habitual storylines and into something new rooted in empathy for my condition ... she (my imagination) must have been singing her way forward as something within me decided to purchase a bike that I knew would be a challenge, and I now think of how being "brave" has a new storyline, too.... Brave is the willingness to try something that many may see as "simple and small" as riding a bike, and Brave was also the day I allowed myself to know I could no longer teach… “Brave” to “do” and Brave to “let go”.... and Brave is allowing my kids into the narrative of my vestibular disorder, allowing them to help and to see that alongside the struggle in life, there is still always beauty as we build our empathy for the reality of our human fragility and cultivate our beauty seeking muscles together.

I think Mary Oliver was very right, our lives continually call to our imagination every single day, inviting us into these precious, fragile, terrifying, and awe-inspiring lives that we actually have, harsh and exciting, announcing our place in the family of things… imagination flying!...

Grace and Peace, Friends