Less Than a Week

          I signed up 6 months ago. In May, I joined the discussion board and started meeting other people. It didn't seem quite real that I was going to the Highlights Foundation Chautauqua Writers Workshop. Three weeks ago, I started cleaning up the manuscripts, making revisions, collating copies. Two days ago, I placed all my clothes and notebooks, pens and mosquito spray out on the guest room bed; I opened up the suitcase to 'let it breathe.' 

                  Today, it hit me... in less than a week I'll be in western New York, surrounded by writers, editors, publishers, and illustrators. An entire week  of talking, writing, eating, breathing, sleeping children's literature and writing.
Oh. My. Gosh.                                      

          I have met some incredible people on the discussion board, They feel like friends I've known a long time. One moved back from Germany to Nebraska last week, another lives in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico. Someone actually lives just across Lake Chautauqua. I want to bring them all home with me and form another writers' group.




            Anyone who has been to the workshop says it's exhilarating, exhausting, and mostly extraordinary. Can one person handle that many exs in a week?????????

If all that isn't exciting enough, there's one more little thing to think about. Bats. You heard me, bats. It seems that western New York has a massive bat population in the summer. I'm told you can see them hanging in the eaves of buildings, and if you see one on the ground, DON'T reach down to help it. Yeah, like that would EVER happen.  I'm also told that no one at Chautauqua has ever been attacked by a bat. That's real comforting to know. The bats do 'appear' to be diving right at you occasionally, but only if you're in the path of reaching an insect. Great, so I need to avoid insects and bats.

I can see it now.... mosquitoes (who LOVE me by the way) following me for a smoothie a la Gail and a pod? swarm? crew? of bats going in for the kill (literally). Until one bumps into my shoulder, freaks me out and I start swinging my cane in the air, like a bat (baseball variety) to keep them away. I have two things to say about that: 1) not a pretty sight but certainly an attention-getter and 2) I hope they move like 'a bat out of hell' and leave me alone!!!                                             

                                                                                                                           

Maybe I should practice whipping that cane around my head! I could partially fold up the cane and swing it like those nunchucks you always see in the martial arts movies, however, that would involve coordination - of which I don't have much- especially eye/hand coordination. Since I'm a little short on the vision spectrum, I'd just end up whacking myself in the face. Try to explain those welts the next day!         


Well, I know I'll have one or two posts from the serious side of Chautauqua. Here's hoping there are no incriminating pictures of the less serious side!

Saturday can't get here soon enough! (Oh yeah, it's my birthday too.)                          

Visualeyes

Wow, days have passed faster than I realized. I thought I posted last week!

My absence is due to preparing for and now participating in a Book Festival at my local community center. The authors I've heard have been phenomenal. I especially love hearing the back stories behind their work of fiction or the research involved for their nonfiction. Last night I saw Pat Conroy! But that's for the next post.

Today I want to share a new milestone I've reached. It's one I wasn't sure I'd make for a looooooooooooong time. In fact, I didn't want to reach it for a loooooong time because it signified acceptance and a change in normalcy.

I'm talking about being glad I use my white cane. There.... I said it aloud, well virtually out loud. Even at this very moment my brain is saying "NO! Don't say glad, say you understand why you need to use it. NEVER acquiesce to 'glad!' "


But the truth is not only do I understand and accept the need for the cane, I also appreciate what it has done for me. So I must use the word 'glad' in talking about the cane.


Prior to becoming a cane-user, I needed to walk slower to prevent running into things or tripping over things. I also had to choose between looking down to avoid curbs, sidewalk dips, things left in an aisle OR look up to avoid bumping into things like SUV mirrors in a parking lot (no, I'm not in the street) or low hanging branches.


With the cane, I can safely watch ahead (up) and know that the cane will detect the things below before I trip or stumble. Now friends say, "slow down, I can't keep up!" 


Before the cane, I wouldn't consider walking outside at night without holding someone's arm. Now I'm willing to walk around because my cane is protective like someone's arm.


And as independent as I believed myself to be B.C. (before cane), I know I'm more independent now. That, my friends and readers, is a milestone accomplished! Losing one's Independence is the worst part of losing your sight....to me.
I've been teetering on the edge of feeling I'd made it, I had kept the independence, until the cane arrived. Boy, did my sense of being dependent increase! But now.....well I'm back to that feisty girl who rarely let things stop her.


Who would have thought that some graphite, thick bands, and a roller ball tip could boost my confidence. Look out, I'm coming through!

Visualeyes

       Going to the LA SCBWI conference was a first for me in several ways. Not only was it my first national writers' conference, it was my first public act acknowledging that I am a visually impaired white cane user.

       Yes, I have used my cane out in public before, but just going places with friends. This time, I used it going through the airport, I used it going to another state, I used it throughout the hotel and walking in LA. This time, it was a part of me.

I have to say it was an emotionally-challenging experience. Meeting new people at the conference, I wondered: did they see me as a blind person who happens to be an author, or did they see me as an author who happens to be visually challenged.


Tough to say..........

You see, as I made my way through the crowd of people (and there were 1,100+ of us there), some people jumped out of the way while others seemed oblivious of the cane. I tried to warn folks I was coming with the visually impaired  equivalent to a horn 'excuse me, excuse me'. That usually led an 'oh, I'm sorry' and hopping or sliding over to the side. I didn't mind the hop or slide; the one that bothered me was when someone suddenly yanked their companion out of my way. That yanking motion implied I didn't see them at all and would run right over them, or right into them. That's why I used the word 'blind' above.
                                                                              *    *    *   *    *

       Most people see me as an outgoing, verbal person. [Okay, so I talk a lot.] However, in social situations where I know few people, or in large crowds, I have a very shy side.  


       So imagine standing in a room full of strangers at a wine and cheese social, holding a plate of fruit and cheese and a cane that is long enough to look like Moses's staff. Does the word uncomfortable or vulnerable, or overwhelming come to mind? It sure did in mine.

Picture an outdoor, grassy area near a pool.This was the location of the Heart and Soul Gala. Add in long banquet tables on either side covered with steamer trays filled with taco fixings and cheese quesadillas.

Now plop down some round tables interspersed in the area, and place huge glass "vases" filled with large heart-shaped sugar cookies on the tables. Oh yeah, throw in a bar area with a long line of people waiting to be served.

Those of us with vision issues refer to this scenario as "an obstacle course."

            Now introduce fading daylight, just two large lights, one on each side that probably provide plenty of light for the normally sighted, but for me with eyes that don't adapt quickly between light and dark, it created more blindspot areas. 

       Nervous yet? Now stick me in there with a cane I'm barely comfortable using, and ask me to mingle with over 1,000 people (of whom I know about 6 personally). Oh, did I mention that a rolling tip cane is useless on grass?

Can you say emotional overload?

These are but two of the challenging times at the conference.

But you know what? 
I made it. I handled it all. 

Yeah, the emotional stress led me me to eat more than one of those large heart cookies. And I left the gala an hour and a half before it was over because the darkness became too dangerous for me. 

But my room overlooked the pool/grassy area and I could stand out on the balcony and still feel a part of the costume competition and music.


And I LOVED every minute of the conference.
Next summer, I hope to go back again. Next time, I'll be more familiar with the hotel layout.  And I will be more comfortable using my cane.


And I think an author friend of mine will also be going and she will be there to lend me a hand....  rather an arm or an elbow.

Visualeyes

       I can't believe a whole month has gone by since I last blogged! Here's the list of reasons why...um rationalizations...um...excuses:

• A few days after the last post, I went to the beach for a week and we had no Internet access- we hardly had cell phone reception. ( yeah, that excuses me until about June 20th. )
• I realized that I had to do some MAJOR writing to have my manuscript at least solidly first drafted before I leave for the national SCBWI-LA conference in order to perfect my pitch for agents. (yeah...pfftt - that's a "raspberry sound" in case you don't recognize my spelling.)
• We had the 4th of July weekend.
•  I'm still working on perfectly the manuscript that had to be totally rewritten after my writers' group critique.

• I've been lazy. (Okay, that's probably the truest.) 
•  I couldn't think of something good to write about.

Anyway, today I found something to write about.


       Since the beach trip- where I took my newly purchased white cane to practice using it- I have been using my cane more and more. I'm feeling more comfortable out in public walking with it and some friends have said, "hey, you walk more confidently now that you're not constantly watching out for stuff to trip on or bump into!"

       Today, I was out shopping with a good bud of mine. We were walking along the sidewalk of an outdoor shopping mall, heading to lunch, when a man suddenly appears next to us and says: "Hey! Have you heard the good news? God heals the blind!" Now my friend tells me he was sitting at a cafe table, talking to someone sitting with him AND talking on his cell phone when he saw us. He jumped up to come over and speak, so to me, that implies there wasn't a lot of forethought going on! This was impulse proselytizing at it's worst [and I am not a fan of proselytizing at all] but he picked the wrong cookie! This is a woman who "encouraged" her city to replace the broken-up, uneven sidewalk near her home. [got it done within 3 weeks] This is a woman who sent letters to all of the executives and Board of Directors of the local mass transit organization to "encourage" them NOT to eliminate the bus routes she needed to get around the city, and cited  the Americans with Disabilities Act. [And they did save the routes (well parts of them.]


No, that man, who thought he had a poor blind woman on his hands who would jump at the thought that a higher power would remove her vision loss, made a big mistake.


I turned to him, put my mad-teacher-face on, stuck out my finger and said, "DON'T GO THERE MISTER! DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" [it always worked well on 4th graders :-D ]

There must have been something in my face that convinced my friend to take my elbow and urge me to continue crossing the walkway, rather than let me go after him. I wanted to tell him he was being totally rude and offensive. I wanted to tell him that religious solicitations using someone's disability was not good karma. I really wanted to take my cane, which is 52 inches long, and which wasn't too far from his feet and suddenly raise it toward heaven- maybe 2 feet off the ground- and smack him where it hurts! Then I could tell him that maybe he could ask for healing too! (Yeah, I know that wouldn't bring good karma either.)


But I didn't....... because unlike that man, I have a bit of class. And while I have done some stupid things in my life, I am not afflicted with terminal stupidity. 


Let this be a lesson to all wish to proselytize to this woman. Think before you speak....or else you better wear some protection!

Visualeyes

I took a big step today. I called a company that makes white canes and ordered my own. By just using the one my mobility instructor brings each session it means I only have to confront getting to the point where I need to use a cane, once a week. Having one, makes it harder to avoid.

I know myself well. I can sabotage my life without too much difficulty, and I can usually rationalize my way in or out of most decisions. So if there's something difficult to do, and I don't really want to do it, I need to narrow the parameters. That way I'm aimed toward the correct decision, not the one of least resistance.

That's why I paid for priority shipping so I'll have the cane early next week, like Tuesday. You see, Saturday next week, I'm going to the beach with a friend. That would be the perfect place and opportunity to practice using my cane. (Not actually on the beach, silly!!!) It's a small town that we can walk to from our condo. No one knows me there, thus eliminating the uncomfortable-being-seen issue and the embarrassment factor. And the friend I'm going with is one of my closest, dearest friends and one of my greatest supporters. I know she will cheer me on and revel in my accomplishments with me. It's the perfect set of conditions; the cane will be there, so I'll just have to use it.

And of course, by telling all of my wonderful blogger buddies and followers, I can't wiggle out of it :-D  (I have to be relentless with myself otherwise I adopt the attitude I heard way too often in my classroom.....do I have to??? Can you hear the whiny voice that goes with it? 

Surely the woman who took on the city of Dunwoody to get a proper sidewalk, and is taking on the leadership of Atlanta's mass transit organization to prevent removal of her much needed bus route, and handle using a cane for a week?

Do I have to???????

Visualeyes

Quite an invigorating week! That's the nice way of saying man it was a crazy week, but great!

I've been working on my cane mobility lessons on Tuesdays and ever since the first lesson when I tried using a blindfold and emotionally freaked out, I've been just walking with my eyes closed. Now being the survivalist,(or is it survivorist ) that I am, I expected to constantly be opening my eyes to check that I wasn't going to fall off a curb or veer out into a street. But NO!!!! I can keep the eyes closed and be comfortable with that. Of course, I know my instructor is there and she won't let me fall off that curb or walk into that street.

We decided to move ahead on my Goals-To-Accomplish  list and try walking to the bus stop, getting on a bus to the MARTA (transit) station, picking up a different bus home, and walking back via an unfamiliar portion of the sidewalk. Even though I suggested doing this, I was quaking in my shoes thinking about actually doing it.

First segment went great- eyes closed, found the curbs, but my internal GPS was a little wonky and I kept thinking I was headed toward the sidewalk while I wasactually walking into the grassy area. I must have looked like a real spaz because my instructor asked me to try the curb/sidewalk again to get the direction thing going. Once I realized I wasn't checking for the whole sidewalk with the cane, and I need to, the spazzy walker disappeared. :-)

I decided the bus segment need to be open-eyed so I knew when to exit and where to look for the next bus. That went well, but I did notice a couple people looking at me. I think they were trying to tell if I was totally blind, partially sighted, or goofing on them (which some people think when they find out you actually can see some things).

The walk back on the unfamiliar sidewalk was a little nerve- wracking since I didn't know when I'd run into a broken up sidewalk or a section with a height difference. Made it though, and as I found the stairs leading to my home, I realized something. I was damn proud of myself! No hyperventilating on my first public outing with a cane. Not as embarrassing as I thought it would be, and actually, some helpful people, like the bus driver who asked if I needed any help getting off the bus and letting me know where the bus was positioned in relation to the entrance to the MARTA station. Tuesday, I was the Little Train That Could! ( if you're not old enough to have grown up reading that children's book, look it up!)

Thursday AM, I met with the Director of Public Works for the city of Dunwoody (my town). Long story short, I had placed a repair ticket on the city government's page requesting the sidewalks to be fixed on the corridor I walk to and from the bus. I explained the vision loss thing and the cane thing. I decided to send the request as an email to all the City Council members as well, along with attached photos of the offending cement. One member responded and he connected me with the Public Works Director. Although I'm not using a cane full time yet, I took the cane with me to practice using it and to show him exactly how cracks, broken cement, and differences in height could effect a visually impaired person. By the time we were halfway through the walk, he said his eyes had been opened to the danger of the sidewalks. This is what I had hoped. Asking him to evaluate them on his own, wouldn't let him view it from my perspective. Walking with me, would. In fairness, I should disclose that my original request for repairs had been in November '09 and basically there was no response. So in this email/request, I mentioned that if I didn't receive a definitive time frame for when the repairs could be done, I was going to the news media. I pointed out that as a new city, it probably wouldn't look good to have the needs of a "disabled resident" being ignored, andit might be a human interest story to the TV consumer reporter or the local newspaper editor. Did that have something to do with me being contacted by a council member? Could be. Did I use my vision loss to my advantage? You betcha.  And so far, it's working. The Council meets tomorrow night to discuss this and other issues. I asked the PW Director and the councilman to keep me in the loop. We'll see. And while I applauded their efforts, I made it clear that this was not an issue to drop. I'm a determined woman, and I don't give up easily!

 

Visualeyes

Back in Atlanta to participate in the Foundation Fighting Blindness walk called VisionWalk. Our team raised $10,000 and the Atlanta chapter raised $100,000! That's fabulous because almost all of the funding goes to cutting edge research.

Having 12 days in town gives me time to reconnect with activities and segments of my life that just went on hold when I was needed in Boston to help out with Mom. I arranged to begin, again, with mobility training. That means learning to walk with a white cane. I find the emotionality of this harder than when I had to unexpectedly give up driving. Yes, I know that cane training will give me more freedom in mobility as the vision decreases. Yes, I know it's a necessary part of this vision journey. And yes, it's required in order to qualify for a guide dog. Even knowing ALL those things, I still feel myself fighting against learning to use one.

One of the strongest qualities I have is that I am a survivor. My instinct to go on after a trauma, tragedy, or major difficulties or disappointments comes from deep within. So as I was anticipating the arrival of my instructor today, my self talk was..... View this as a learning experience. Concentrate on learning new skills instead of the implication of using a cane. Don't run from this, immerse yourself in it. Don't think about feeling embarrassed to have others watching you.


I asked my instructor to bring a blindfold today. It's not required to learn cane travel this way but I know myself and my survivor instinct well. If I'm allowed to use my sight, I will use the sight to give me cues, rather than the cane.

We started in the parking area which feeds into the street running through my condo complex. I had trash to take to the compactor/dumpster and letters to place in the mail slot at the mailbox center. Now if I was using my eyes, the walk to the trash compactor would take about 90 seconds. Today, I think it took 30 minutes.

I have a clear picture in my head of the walk to the compactor- down the stairs, step off the curb, turn right, walk to the end of the parking area, turn right and walk the distance of about a block, over 2 speed humps, up 3 steps, landing, and 4 more steps to the opening of the dumpster. Easy, right? Not even close.

Apparently, with a blindfold, I'm like a car with poor alignment; I kept veering to the lefttoward the center of the road. True, there were no cars, but if one came along, I was primed to become a hood ornament! My instructor would "show" me by drawing a line on my back with her finger, which way I was walking and which way I needed to be walking. As you sweep your cane side to side, you're looking for obstacles or to find curbs or steps. She kept stopping me and adjusting the direction I was headed- inevitably I'd be veering left.

Today I learned to find a curb and align myself with me. (That's not the term she used, but I don't remember the correct one!) I learned when you run into something with the cane, to plant the cane firmly against it walk up to it and get your toes lined up with the edge. If it's a step up, move the cane up first, then step. If it's a step down, move the cane ahead to find the next step down before you take your step down.
That doesn't sound too scary, however, as a limited vision person, I am trained to always hold onto a rail in case I miss a step. In mobility training, they don't have you holding onto a rail. It felt like I was taking a step and not knowing if it was that one off a cliff. My instructor kept reaasuring me she wouldn't let me fall. The biggest step for me, though, was trusting her. Not because she isn't a trustworthy person; rather because I really don't know her well and I am literally stepping into the dark. I guess you could call it a leap of faith. :-)

The mailboxes are probably 30 feet from the compactor but it might as well have been 30 miles. No where I walked seemed to match the picture in my head and that was frustrating and a bit frightening. After walking into the center area between the 2 rows of mailboxes- which wasn't where we needed to be- to find the  mail slot, I finally got turned around to the outside edge of the boxes and found it. You would have thought I had crossed a desert, crawled through mud, and then walked on a tightrope over a huge chasm instead of  just carrying a bag of garbage to the dumpster and 2 letters to the mail slot!

I couldn't handle anymore of the blindfold. When I took it off and could see around me, I just cried. Relief  I made it, joy at seeing what matched the picture in my head- I don't know. But I knew I didn't want to put the blindfold on again today. We walked toward the front of the complex, my instructor reassuring me that I had done well, and me just sniffling away. We approached the security guard, sitting in his car. He must have watched us on our journey to the dumpster. As we passed him, he called out: "Did you have a fun walk?"
I was horrified, and embarrassed, and still sniffling away. Didn't he see I had a white cane? What did he think, I was out walking blindfolded on a whim or FOR FUN????? I replied, with as much dignity as I could muster at the moment; " No, there is nothing fun about learning to use a cane."

Obviously, he didn't think.....unless he's an idiot.... or maybe a jerk.

Visualeyes 13

As I stood at a bus stop today, patiently waiting for the bus, I realized a few things:

• I am now, literally, a "bag lady"- pack on my back and after shopping,a sack or 2 in hand
• I think my ancestral "peasant stock" is coming in handy as I shlep bags from place to place
• Waiting for a bus is MUCH  easier when you're yakking on the phone with someone!

I've actually adapted rather easily, all things considered and minus a few bad days, to being car-less and being a mass transit-er. And while a few people have said good job, I'm proud of you, mostly I'm proud of myself. I thought I might hit a brick wall, so to speak, when the driving phase of my life ended, but I'm doing ok. Someone suggested to me that I adopt the "large metropolis mentality", where using public transportation reigns supreme and carrying shopping bags is a daily occurrence. Just pretend, she said, you're in New York, or Chicago, or Boston. It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but writers are supposed to do that.

Pretending you are cosmopolitan is a whole lot easier than the issue I'm dealing with now I had my first orientation and mobility  (O and M) training session this week. That means, in plain terms, learning to walk using a white cane. When the instructor measured me for the correct size cane and then handed me a cane to use, it felt almost like someone giving me a prosthetic leg. I can only imagine how weird it must feel standing on a leg that isn't really yours but being expected to adjust to it as if it's a part of your body. Learning to use a cane properly equates to the same thing for me.

Our first exercise was just learning how to hold it correctly- the where you grip it, the where you position it on your body frame- and the sweeping motion back and forth. The next step is to walk around the office space trying it out. So we are preparing to leave the instructor's cubicle and she's telling me to sweep back and forth, hitting the cane against the opening walls of the cubicle smack....smack....smack... back and forth, side to side. She's watching my technique, I'm just thinking oh crap, can I possibly make any MORE noise so people will notice me???? I just wanted to drop it and run. She tells me that the noise is ok because everyone there knows what's happening.........I just want to run. It's that emotional component that I'm struggling to overcome.

I had decided if they had canes to purchase, I'd buy one. I wouldn't use it, but I'd buy it. Lots of people in the RP Support Group have said that they bought a cane, put it in the drawer, and didn't use it for many months. [of course we're talking about a collapsible cane] That's what I thought I would do. When I found out that they didn't sell them, you had to order them, I was so relieved. Then my instructor offered to loan the cane to me until our next session, in 2 weeks. I'm thinking you want me to practice with it out in public????  I  said, no thanks, I probably won't have time to practice with it. The equvalent of drop it and run.


I am feeling so tentative and a little fragile about using this cane. I know it will be helpful for me, currently, at night. I already "feel" blind at night. But daytime, well I still feel like a sighted person- ok maybe a  limited sighted person who bumps into stuff sometimes. But I feel sighted and using a white cane makes me feel blind. What's worse, it makes me LOOK blind. How do I get over that? See, it's that emotional component again.

My next session will be at my house. I asked my instructor to bring a blindfold. During O and M, depending on what aspect one is working on, it can sometimes be helpful to "eliminate" all sight so you don't rely on it as a crutch. I figured I'm comfortable enough with my condo complex that I can try it blindfolded. But truthfully, I think it has more to do with not seeing others watching me learn to use a cane because it embarrasses me.

How long, I wonder, will I go on feeling uncomfortable using a cane. Will seeing me use one bother or effect my friends and family? I just don't know but I'm not really wanting to find out yet.

Visualeyes 8

I went to have a low vision evaluation. For those unfamiliar with the term "low vision" it's used to refer to people who obviously have difficulty seeing but can possibly be assisted with magnifiers, special types of lens, or computer hardware or software. This evaluation is really to assess the functionality of one's eyes rather than acuity. My acuity is still quite good so I'm able to read with my glasses and only use a magnifier to read at night, when my eyes are tired and might strain to see small print.

The women I worked with were all kind, supportive, and eager to see what they could do to help. They showed me various magnifiers and we discussed assistive technology, such as Acrobat which uses a small mounted camera-like magnifier that can turn 360 degrees and can be used for: doing close-up work (like my jewelry making), putting on makeup (but who really wants to see all those lines on your face?), projecting the TV images close to you even when it's across the room, writing in a notebook or computer (so I can still write children's books). All I need is a spare $2400 to get one! Someone want to buy it for me for my birthday this summer?????? Yeah, just kidding.

We also discussed the need for mobility training. Sometimes it's referred to a "safety and travel" but it comes back to the same thing- using a white cane. Now you would think that anything would be preferable to smashing your shins and knees into concrete benches, wastebaskets, low-lying coffee tables, small children, or smacking your shoulder into columns, walls, and SUV side mirrors. I would think that too, except that it means using a white cane, the universal symbol for being blind. It's not quite as bad as a neon sign flashing" blind person comin' through", but recognizable none the less. As much as I know I'm visually impaired and may end up totally blind, I don't feel I'm there YET. So my hesitation is purely emotionally based. (Geez, I feel like a goober even saying that I'm not ready. Using a cane is so helpful, I'm told) But somewhere inside, I have a memory of watching people stare at a blind person with a cane, and the look of pity on their faces. And the people who step quickly out of the way  of someone with a cane as if blindness was contagious NOT because they are trying to get out of the way. Those are vivid images that are tough to overcome.

I need to say that being open with everyone I meet about my visual impairment is still new to me. It's only in the last 3 years (out of 32 years knowing about the condition) that I've openly talked about RP. And maybe my reluctance to have a cane is still part of trying to appear "normal"  or sighted to the world. You know, as I write these things, I almost want to bang my head against the wall for acting so silly. This is my opportunity to stand up and say: "I'm not going to let this RP rule my life. Watch and see all that I can do!" I spent 30 years trying to be a role model for children & help them learn that you can't let difficulties hold you back. That's exactly what I'm doing though.

Well, the car will go this weekend and while I'm starting a new life chapter, I might as well try the mobility training too. I have empathy for Sisyphus in Greek mythology, pushing that boulder uphill. I certainly can relate. Some days, though, it feels like I've got ankle weights on as well.