One summer I tried my hand (and feet) at wild land firefighting.
Yes, I signed up to fight fires in the woods.
My dad had been working in the field and was able to help me get hired near my hometown. At 21 years old, after my 3rd year of college, I found myself the lone female on a seven man hand crew in central Utah.
There are many lessons I learned that summer. For one, never, ever hike without your pack and digging tool, in case you end up needing them. Second, it's a long hike to find cover to pee in a burned down forest. And third, my feet are definitely not meant to hike around for hours a day, every day of the week, in heavy firefighting boots. I can never forget the blisters I endured that summer.
We did PT- physical training- every day. I've always been "athletic," but I learned quickly that I'm not as strong or as fast as men are. And though I struggled to keep up during runs and lifting activities, my lack of strength and speed was never more obvious than when we were hiking as a crew through the woods.
I was always bringing up the rear while hiking. My supervisor, whose name I don't remember now- maybe Jake, would hike behind me. He had to make sure his whole crew got to where we were going. He would whistle loudly as we marched along. I wondered if he was a little annoyed by my slowness. And I wondered how he could be so cheery on these hikes, whistling and what not. I'd inevitably get behind and, feeling like I was letting the crew down, apologize to the supervisor. He'd stop with me when my legs felt like they'd give out under the weight of the fifty pound pack, and he always responded to my apologies with, "Slow is good, and good is fast." He'd yell up to the crew to slow the pace, which added to my slowness shame. He explained that he'd rather me go at the pace I can go, than to try too hard to keep up and get hurt. Getting hurt would slow us down much more than simply hiking at a slower pace.
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My supervisor's words have come back to me recently as I watch our daughter learn piano. As an energetic seven year old, she wants to get her work at the piano done fast and move on to playing. She cranks out the notes as fast as possible, often making many mistakes on the way because of the speed she's trying to maintain. She gets flustered and says, "I hate stupid piano!" (A phrase I, no doubt, said as a kid when my mom made me play piano.) I try to keep my patience with her and remind her that slow is good, and good is fast. No sense in playing fast if you're not even playing it right. As we sit at the piano together, Cooper plays on the floor nearby. He stands up for half-a-second and claps for himself as he falls back down to land on his diaper covered bum.
Cooper has been working on walking for what seems like forever. I remember our first kid learning to walk. It seems like as soon as she figured out how to stand, she was taking steps shortly thereafter. It couldn't have taken her much more than a month to figure it out. Cooper has been trying for months and months and months. The progress is there but is so, so incredibly slow. I should know by now, after seeing him take longer to sit up and crawl, that he'll get it and I need to be patient. And I feel like I am patient, for the most part. But I long to see him be able to explore a park without scraping up his knees or wondering what germs he's just got all over his hands. To watch him run after his sister. To hold his tiny hand and walk around the neighborhood. To kneel down and have him run into my arms.
At a recent evaluation for an intensive therapy session (called Now I Can in our area), I voiced for the first time, to someone besides my husband, my longing for Cooper to walk. This lady had the type of personality that told me it was safe to open up. I went on and on about him being in almost the same place for months, even discussing with her the thoughts that ran through my head about the possibility of Cooper having hip problems, and maybe that's contributing to his slow pace with walking. My voice cracked at times, and I realized how heavy this had been weighing on me. With a baby on the way, I feel this growing pressure to help Cooper as much as possible before we meet our new little one here in a couple months. It's a timeline that I've created in my mind and am now feeling constrained by- with walking, with communicating, with everything I think Cooper "needs" to learn sooner than later.
As I listed off my concerns and hopes for Cooper in the intensive therapy program to the nice therapist, I started to feel guilty about my apparent impatience with my son and his abilities. The therapist watched Cooper moving and came to the conclusion that one of the main areas he needs to work on is hip strength to be able to maintain balance in standing and taking steps. She said one of the things she thought they could improve was his ability to use his walker for longer periods of time.
I don't know what the outcome of this intensive will be anymore than the therapist, and I appreciate that she wasn't getting my hopes up too high, but I'd by lying if I said I didn't hope for him to be fully independent with walking by the end of the session. I felt a little wave of disappoint run through my brain. I wanted her to say she thought he had immense potential and he would be walking in no time! I wanted her to tell me he was so close and it wouldn't take much to get him there. But she didn't. Would I feel satisfied if he is still dependent on a walker after all this?
As she spoke about possible outcomes and I fought to let the disappointment go, I heard in my head, "Slow is good, and good is fast." I realized I need to apply this principle from my fire fighting days to Cooper. Would I want to push him so hard and so fast that he gets hurt in the process? Would I want to make him walk before his body his strong enough, potentially creating problems down the road?
I pursued the intensive session to have focused, specialized, and frequent help with Cooper's physical abilities. I can see how badly he wants to be on his feet! And I can also see how difficult it is for him due to the low muscle tone he was born with. He will be there every day, Monday through Friday, for three weeks, for two hours a day. This is intense for him. Anything he does in this program will be a lot of work for him. So, I'm reminded that going slow isn't bad. I'm reminded that I know how it feels to be the one in the back of the pack, feeling like I've slowed down everyone else. And even though no one made me feel less than for being slower, I sure felt the sting of being "different." Some of us just move at a slower pace than others. All our bodies are created differently and, therefore, perform differently.
To expect Cooper to walk when I want him to, would have been like expecting myself to keep up with the men on the firefighting hand crew years ago. It's not fair to have those expectations. It's simply not realistic. I have a feeling, for me and my personality type, managing my expectations in regards to Cooper's abilities will be something I need to learn over and over again, and hopefully there will come a point when I truly understand that what he does or doesn't do is not an indicator of his worth as a human. If my worth was judged by my abilities to cook, for example, I would probably be rated as a pretty terrible human. It's just not something I innately do very well.
I'm sure there will be many more things in life that I'm"slow"at. And I hope someone will always be there telling me, "Slow is good, and good is fast."
That's what I plan to do for my Cooper as long as I get to be his advocate on this Earth.
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