Hemiplegia is a straightforward medical diagnosis. The verb that necessarily precedes it, is not. Hemiplegia is the term for someone like me who has little or no use of one side of her body. So when I talk about it do I say that I suffer from it? I’m disabled by it? Maybe it settled upon me like an act of God?
Over time, because I did not know the extent to which recovery would continue, I returned to my childhood and prefer to say I play with hemiplegia. Because of the unique sensations that any brain disruption sends out, there are many ways to experience changes between one side of the body and the other. My childhood was one blessed with wonderful play. My hemiplegiahood is too. In childhood we play with many things and in many ways, but always by play we mean a combination of inventiveness, freedom from other’s expectations, creativity, a carefree spirit and joyful indulgence in small and large passions. The play that I do within my body is difficult to share because there is no universal language, but the play that I do in my environment, which is necessitated by the changes in my body, is shareable. I don’t suffer from hemiplegia. I play with it by every definition of the word. I only suffer from it when there is no play.
I share here my hemiplegia play: one-handed phone photography of cactus on the Baja Peninsula, called landscape cactus emojis. If you’d like to play with me, see if you can rename them.
Social Distancing Practice:
Don’t fence me in!
That middle finger!
Out on a limb:
Choral of cactus singing Mexico the Beautiful from sea to shining sea:
Hard to stand out in a crowded field
May the vulture of happiness crown you with guano–an old cactus proverb
Changing course!
Perfect!
With child!
Isolation sucks
How do you play?
