OCR Text |
Show In the Beginning 1983 They are too heavy! He has asked me once again how my legs are now different as he taps at them with his orange rubber hammer and pulls at them with his two hands. They are too heavy. But it is more than that. I have run miles with light legs in times past, my long red braid flopping a steady rhythm onto my back, but now these same legs appear to be thinking before they act, hesitating before plunging into one step after the other. What was once sure is now feckless. Tentative. There is no longer fluidity to my steps, no silver thread sewing the contracting and expanding movement together into one nameable piece - "walking" or "running." I had stood, confused, in my living room one day some weeks after the birth of our second child, legs aching, back tugging in some sort of muted protest, trying to run in place. It seemed safer than my one attempt outdoors the day before, trying to pick up this sport again, outdoors where the concrete sidewalk rushed up at my face too fast at a seeming misstep. Running in place, indoors, I found myself mentally forcing one leg up and, incredulously, mentally put it back down again. And then repeating with the other leg. As if I were a neophyte at ambulation. As if this |