DAY 4: THE STORY OF YOU

Today we're exploring tell your story, your body's story. Let's get inspired by one part of our bodies and tell their story, focusing on a part of your body you can invite in compassion towards through this story.

You might use some of these suggestions or create your own. Let some of those stories of you spill out onto this page and into your photo today.

THESE FEET HAVE TAKEN ME...

THESE ARMS HAVE HELD...

THIS BELLY HAS NOURISHED...

THESE HANDS HAVE CREATED...

THESE EYES HAVE SEEN...

THESE EARS HAVE HEARD...

These hands have created a vanilla sundae with whipped cream, chocolate syrup, & a maraschino cherry in a small clear glass desert bowl with a short stem & pedestal - only the sundae itself was crafted out of melted wax crayons for an art project Ms Reed had our grade 5 class make.

The fingers of these hands have created the sound of music as they learned to dance across the ivory keys of the wood grained upright Yamaha piano my parents enrolled me to learn when I was ever so young. And these hands wiped away tears from my eyes on the days I’d have a temper tantrum, fighting with Mum over not wanting to practice.

These hands have created pencil drawings of the Cariboo-Chilcotin region I grew up surrounded by, in the heart of British Columbia, Canada when I was twelve years old - inspired by the pen & ink drawings of Canadian artist Al Ranger whose book “The Cariboo: Sketches, Maps & Trip Notes by Al Ranger” still has a place on my shelf today. One of those drawings won an honourable mention at a retreat in Portland, Oregon I attended through my first high school, the White Rock Christian Academy.

These hands have created oil paintings on canvas at the age of fourteen, when I told my Mum I wanted to learn how to paint like that easy going painted on television, Bob Ross. Somehow Mum found a local woman, Artist Vee Hansen, who ran a small framing & arts supplies store that also offered classes for adults. She let me join her class of adult painters, where I caught on quickly, recreating a scene of Mt St Helen’s before its explosion. It was a curriculum that eventually replaced playing the piano, a decision I’ve often regretted as I got older. But the painting has been something I’ve continued to do, on & off, ever since.

These hands have created a scar in me, when I woke to find them frozen with a tingling sensation akin to the feeling one has when their foot falls asleep. I’d felt sick before going to bed that night on the last day of January 2023, so much so I remember taking some nighttime cold & flu medication before falling asleep early, around 7pm. Around 10pm I remember waking from my slumber to a strange sensitivity that ran up my arms, into my chest & down my right leg. I remember laying in bed, slightly scared as I wondered what was happening as the awareness of something normal returned to my left side. I stumbled out of bed, & through my fog I wandered down the hallway to the kitchen to find my Mum, and explain to her how I was feeling. FAST, the acronym society uses to identify the advancing onset of a stroke didn’t seem to apply to me. FAST, but my Face wasn’t droopy. FAST, but I could lift my Arms above my head. FAST, but my Speech wasn’t impaired. So I decided to return to bed, hopeful the feeling in the rest of my body would return by morning, just as it had in my left side just a few moments before.

But it didn’t. I woke again around 6am, & struggled to even manoeuvre to the toilet. Pulling down my pyjama bottoms was a struggle, & wiping my own ass felt impossible due to that damn lingering sensation of a tingling numbness in my arm & what was my once dominant right hand. I flushed as it took all my strength to hoist myself up onto my legs, & I stumbled down the hallway to the entrance to the garage.

I sloppily stuffed my feet into my shoes, lumbering across the garage to go outside. There, I trudged through the snow to the mailbox that hadn’t been checked in days. I made it, collected the few pieces of junk mail in my left hand, and headed back towards the house only to find my right shoe had slipped off near the foot of the driveway not long after I had ventured out. It scared me that my bare skin hadn’t even noticed the cold, damp, snow as my foot took slow step after slow step to the community mailbox a block away from the house. Something was wrong.

But I still decided to ignore my aching distant desire to call 911, instead I chose to sleep some more. So, when I woke again around 11am, almost 13 hours after a part of my body decided to go on some kinda permanent vacation, I finally made the decision to call 911. After being taken to the hospital by ambulance around 2pm, emergency room staff put me through a barrage of tests. I remember the sound of my gurney’s smooth wheels gliding along the white medical grade vinyl flooring with grey speckled spots as I watched the two by four ceiling tiles pass by overhead, broken up by panels of fluorescent light tubes that lit our path. I was still conscious when a doctor came to my emergency room bedside to break the news to me. It was now around 10pm, almost 24 hours after I had awakened to my new reality of which this middle aged man offered clarity without comfort: I had suffered a stroke.

A stroke. Something old people have. A stroke. His words were scolding, for my not coming in right away, as any of the pharmaceutical cocktails they could have given me would now be ineffective. A tear streamed down my face. I’m certain anyone could have smelled the fear that was wound deep in my being at that moment in time. A stroke. Sometimes called a brain attack. An event the CDC describes as occurring “…when something blocks blood supply to part of the brain or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts. In either case, parts of the brain become damaged or die. A stroke can cause lasting brain damage, long-term disability, or even death…” A stroke.

Part of my brain was damaged. Part of my brain was dead. This was my new reality. Would these hands ever create anything ever again? Not knowing was the most terrifying of all. I sobbed deeply with the wail of a moan, a broken cante jondo. Nothing prepares you for these things. For things that have the potential to change the trajectory of the rest of your life.

(277/365).

This was originally posted on Instagram.

Today’s photo prompt and reflective journaling questions for today was a part of the BE YOUR OWN BELOVED photo workshop challenge which is run several times throughout the year by photographer VIVIENNE McMASTER. It’s well worth signing up for, and doing alongside other participants.