Part 1 What? Why? How? / Chapter 1 Do It Anyway
You're a tall drink of half drunk whiskey, my pigeon toed gypsy. ~ Atticus
I don’t know what caught her attention first, my quivering lip or my sister Audrey and our two friends laughing while they mimicked my walk. What I do know is that no one on the second floor of the Smithsonian’s rotunda would want to mess with my Mom after what came next. “Stop!” she roared. Before the sound finished echoing in the hall, everyone, and I mean everyone, had frozen. Mom’s eyes blazed at Audrey and the girls. Audrey and the girls’ eyes blazed at me. “Do you have any idea what it takes for your sister to walk?” Mom was fierce, her voice guttural, arms akimbo.
The guilty ones, mortified by the attention, giggled in embarrassment. Further enraged, Mom shouted, “First position, all of you, NOW!” The girls stood still, eyes wide, momentarily forgetting their childhood ballet lessons. “Turn - your - feet - out - now!” Mom growled, punching each word. They turned out their toes. “MORE!” she yelled. I remember my friend Shannon’s cheeks turned bright pink. Audrey and Rachel kept their eyes on me, defiant, as they turned their feet out further. “Now walk!” Mom was regal in her fury, tall and slim, the vision of a ballet matron following her students, eyes vigilant as they moved across the museum floor. “Toes out”, she called if their feet began to drift back.
I retreated, hugging the wall. Over a week of sightseeing, morning to night, had left my hips screaming and legs exhausted. By the time I was 13, forcing myself to walk straight enough not to trip was possible, for a while, but once the muscles used to manipulate them were cooked, the illusion fell apart rather quickly. The pain would start in the front of my hips, tugging, then cramping, a dull ache making its way from the muscles on the outside to the bones deep inside. If there was no rest, the dull ache grew sharp, my knees would begin to quiver, and as hard as I willed them to stay straight, nature would win. My thigh bones would begin their journey inward, right knee anti-clockwise, left knee clockwise, until it took all my energy and focus not to trip. The girls weren’t even a quarter around the rotunda with their toes pointing out before they complained that it hurt. Mom’s answer to them, calmer now, was to imagine having to do that all day long.
Through the pain, humiliation, and knowledge that I’d have to contend with the girls’ inevitable anger, unexpected clarity, and a new resilience crept in. Watching the girls struggle that afternoon was the first time I truly understood my challenge; I think it might have been the first time Mom did too. Until then, I didn’t have anything to compare my efforts to. Until then, Mom didn’t either.
Years before, against the advice of a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, my parents opted out of the surgery that would have “fixed” their little one’s deformity. The procedure would have involved cutting both of my thigh bones in half to reposition the ball joints in my hip sockets. “Surely modern medicine will come up with something less invasive,” Mom told the doctor. Unimpressed, the surgeon handed down his prognosis, “She’ll never make it out of her 30s with those hips. But at least with that smile, no one will be looking at her feet.” Mom and I never spoke about that moment, but she clearly liked the smile comment, repeating it often throughout my life. I can still hear his words, though I’ll never know if he meant to be kind, passive-aggressive, or something in between. Little Me had other concerns: How do I stop tripping? I asked. To that, the doctor offered two words: “Walk straight.” Since walking straight was impossible for me at the time, and trying hurt, I told him so. His parting advice: “Do it anyway.” And so began my journey to Walk Straight.
*Names have been changed.
Anyone else have a moment in childhood that quietly redirected everything, only to recognize its weight years later? I’d love to hear. XxD
If you stumbled on this story today, I’m so glad you’re here! Think of Walk Straight as a mix of short strolls (like today) and the occasional uphill trek. The path makes the most sense if you start at the beginning!
I’ve read this story to a number of people and it always makes me tear up. Love your story-telling Campbell.
You mean like when Brian Brady and Ted Anderson used to bark at me on the breezeway, further cementing what my already certain eyes would see and my very clever inner asshole would tell me - that I was ugly?