Knees

Today I felt excruciating pain and it makes me laugh out loud. It is the kind of pain nightmares are made from. The stinging burn of a wretched metal needle sliding into an already swollen knee is so shocking, laughter is an involuntary response.

Shaelin, my 2-year old, climbs into the chair next to the padded exam table and watches me. I stare at the fluorescent lights in the ceiling and once the menacing needle is out, I turn and smile at her. “Mama laughing”, she says. “Yes”, I lie. Smile through the pain. This will get a lot worse if she sees me crying.

The needle man in green scrubs and a gold chain says he will “numb it up” before he drains the knee. His spikey brown hair matches his glimmering eyes. “First you’ll feel a pinch, then a slow burn, then numbness,” he says. These things happen at the exact moment he says them.

Despite the alleged numbness, the draining needle is equally tortuous because the pain is sharp and dull and annoyingly uncomfortable all at the same time. Needle man explains there’s a fine line between therapy and torture and he will go only as far as he thinks one can stand it.
I cover my face as my chest involuntarily heaves with laughter, my body twitches as I inch closer to the space between the wall and the table. “We’re done”, Needle man finally says.

Shaelin kneels on top of the doctor’s desk and pulls out all the Kleenexes from the box, she does not see me convulsing from the pain.

“Arthritis! But I’m only 39”, I yell into the phone at my mother. She says “I have it in both knees and that replacement surgery I had made it worse.” This is her way of making me feel better. My grandpa always smelled like Ben Gay and my Grandma’s fingers were bent over at the tips, “Arthritis”, she explained.

Last week, my Valentine’s Day date was a huge, clanking machine made by G.E. Dr. Orthopedic orders an MRI of my knee “just to be sure”. It is agonizing for a fidgety person to remain still for 30 minutes while a machine pounds away, taking pictures of every angle. The technician offers a list of music to drown out the noisy machine and The Beatles is only tolerable option is. The sound system and headphones are worse than hearing loud piercing music through the overhead speakers in an airplane.
Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody. Heeelp!! screams in my ear and I shove the headphones off to check for dripping blood.

“Arthritis”, Dr. Orthopedic says staring at the oversized sheets of gray film. “Looks like the start of it” he says, crossing his knees.

A month ago, Shaelin stands up in the ant cave at the Children’s Museum and hits her head and cries until I crawl around inside it with her. My knee swells up the next day and never recovers.

Twenty some years ago, at a high school dance I shuffle across the floor to show off my Morris Day moves from his music video “Jungle Love”. I fall to the floor and hold my knee. No pain, just a circle of friends and teachers staring down at me. Dislocated knee caps require a cast (6 weeks for me), physical therapy (another 6 weeks) and crutches.

Shaelin likes to show off her jumping prowess. She lands flat feet without bending her knees. Doesn’t that hurt? Will it damage? I teach her to land and bend her knees at the same time, but she doesn’t understand. I can’t bend my knee to show her.

MINE

I rush lunch to hasten her nap
Mine she says
and hugs the white kitchen cabinet

Daddy hurries the bedtime story
turning pages quickly
mine she says, holds the page in place

Her young mind protests
her parent’s pace. Mine.
Slow down. I’m only two.

Repressed cruelty, American Idol style

When I was 10 years old, I told my younger sister she couldn’t sing and that dogs were probably howling somewhere because of her awful voice. My mother intervened on her behalf and said that if I couldn’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

This was not the first time I heard this phrase of wisdom, for it would become a teaching mantra my mother used in dealing with her children who were cruel to each other at times.

Working in advertising, I often have to offer an opinion on creative work. These words from my mother buzz through my brain and I learned how to be tactful in my honest assessment, without destroying a person’s fragile creative spirit. Instead of saying “this work is shit”, I say “well, the headline doesn’t really hit the strategy we outlined and the color you’ve chosen doesn’t fit into the corporate brand.”

So imagine my surprise when I found myself addicted to the audition shows of American Idol. Everything about these shows flies in the face of how I was raised. You just aren’t suppose to be that mean to someone – at least not to their face! At times, the judges do offer some constructive criticism telling the contestants they are “pitchy” and I do respect the notion of honesty when they tell people that a singing career is not in their future. But when they tell a male contestant that they are better off wearing a dress, putting on false eyelashes and singing in a cabaret show, that hits below the belt (even if I think it's kind of funny and true). And then the camera focuses on the contestant’s face full of confusion and ignorance to what the motives of the judges words are. This show is Mean Girls on steroids!

Yet, why then do I snicker and roll my eyes at the contestants? Despite the cruel nature of these shows, I find myself rushing to get my daughter to bed, so that I can lounge in front of the TV, kick up my feet and groan at the overweight, not at all attractive, 18 year old who has been over-encouraged by her friends and family that she can actually sing. Is it because I have repressed ambitions to tell everyone what I really feel – without being tactful, without worrying about hurting their feelings, in other words, completely destroying someone?

When did it become okay to tell someone that they look like bush-baby in the jungle when they are auditioning for singing contest? And why did I agree and laugh? Quickly followed by a “oh, now that’s just mean” comment. As if to tell my husband and the world that I’m not really a Mean Girl too. Why are the audition portions of this show one of the highest rated on TV? Why do I plan my evenings around this show? Shouldn’t I be reading a great American novel? Or better, working on a piece of my own writing.

Do I accept what I’ve become – one of the masses who have thrown politeness, decorum and respect for the average Joe on the street out the window? And worse, feeding the TV ratings machine that perpetuates the Mean Girls attitude in the name of Reality TV.

Or simply, I’m allowing my repression to play out two hours a week?