February 3, 2025

In the Light of Every Day Pain

Dear reader, 

My chronic spine pain started in 2017 after a small earthquake and I don’t know if the earthquake jostled something in me or if that is just how I remember time. I called my friend Asia, a skilled dancer and craniosacral therapist, and she came over and sat with me in my bed and just held my spine for a long time. I could barely move. By the end of the day the major pain had passed but the discomfort remained.

In 2020 there were a few times where it got so bad that when it would pinch and shoot pain up and down my spine and down my right arm I would have to crawl on my hands and knees to the clawfoot bathtub to hurl myself over the edge and into the water, the only way I could find any relief. That year some of the pinched nerve flares were so bad I thought I would have to go to the hospital. 

Over the last five years I have had some relief, sometimes for months at a time, where I have no flare ups and only mild discomfort. But in the last few months the pain has emerged in a new and dominant way and is simply relentless. 

My mental and physical health are something I take really seriously, and have tried so many modalities over the last decade to stay out of western medicine doctor’s offices and find more holistic ways to manage my body and mind. As I have gotten more comfortable taking meds for my mental health it has led me to start seeking other forms of treatment for my spine.

I am grateful for the team of professionals I have who bring relief to the pain and am not accepting outside advice at this time, but what I want to explore is what its like to live with every day pain. I find that some days I don’t even notice it, even though it is extreme and loud.

It takes a dull back seat so that I can do my work, do my tasks, and do my creative projects.

It takes a dull back seat when I want to dance or teach, when I am on a walk, or when I am doing pilates. Movement is of great help to it.

It takes a dull back seat so that I can survive in capitalism as a single solo living queer person in the rural north. Although some days this seems impossible, the pain is part of what lead me to radically change how I keep and manage my work schedule.

I have been taking a homeopathic remedy and can’t tell if it’s making it better or worse. This is often the case with the different avenues I try to tackle it - sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse. And more often than not it is worse before it is better.

Today I am at the center of the candle that burns on both ends waiting for the edges to meet.

Living with this pain also brings great gratitude, pain free days appearing like a miracle and something I don’t take for granted. I sit on a special pillow when I write, rest on a special pillow when I sleep, and take a bath every day. These are things I also do not take for granted, that I have the space for this sort of healing.

What a mystery, this pain. It brings me into the unknown every day. I have found a comfort in not knowing what the day will bring. How strong will the pain be, how distracting will it be, will I want to lay down or take a bath or just tune out the world with my little vices?

Years ago an internet troll named Charlotte left a string of comments on Personal Practice videos making fun of my spine pain. She noted : You are so bad at dancing no wonder your spine hurts. While I know better than to listen to an internet troll I also know I internalized this and let it stop me from writing about it. Let us never forget when I was called the “Ballet Lesbian” in high school and stuck myself right in the closet for a decade. My rejection sensitivity dysphoria is strong and will stop me in my tracks if I am not mindful about it.

I write to you today with a sense of hope, even in my pain body. I write with a sense of curiosity, wondering what this pain has to say to me, what it is trying to teach me, and why does it feel like now is the time to share about it?

There is no sweet way to wrap the pain story up. No bow to place on top of it. Even in my hopeful state I find the through line of frustration and despair. All the parts working together to find their way to the front of the line, to have their grievances heard.

What I promise to myself is that I will no longer hide this story, from the world or people in my inner circle. I will not pretend it isn’t happening or that I am fine when I am not.

I will fill my ribcage with steamy breaths, do my pilates exercises, and care for my body in more serious and steadfast ways. I will live in the light of this every day pain.

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Things of Note :

1. I enjoyed this interview with the late Kevin Killian in The Creative Independent on being unlikeable in your work

2. Really into the Ping Practice website

3. Holly Whitaker’s beautiful newsletter about not knowing how to show up right now

4. Which also brought me to this essay on how much do we really need to know?

5. The book Eco Soma by Petra Kuppers has helped me feel so much less alone in my pain

6. Another reminder that I am so happy to no longer be using Substack - I not only feel so free from not logging into the website but also to be free of its concerning rhetoric around free speech.

7. Getting really into Mustard Bath

8. Devoured this beautiful book of poetry and writing Poem Bitten by a Man by Brian Teare

9. Our next CAVE DAY in Landscapes is Sunday February 9 from 12-4pm EST

10. Corinne Fay interviewed me about style in the newsletter Big Undies

CLASSIFIEDS : 

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