Gym Class Drops Me - Literally - and Italian Artist Gerardo Dottori

Emergency room drama and a dramatically powerful painter.

"We cannot live in a world interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light."
— Hildegard of Bingen

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."
— Lao Tzu

"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable."
— Madeleine L'Engle

Well, I didn’t want to write about my very scary gym class experience until I had a happy ending. I’m not sure we’re there yet, but there’s not much left to learn, so I’m choosing to believe the worst is behind me.

Here’s my tale of woe: For my first gym class three weeks ago, I chose Yoga-Lates, after consulting with my beautiful, perfectly conditioned 18-year-old trainer. Mistake #1. When I arrived, everyone in the class was about my age, which reassured me. Mistake #2. Then I decided that I was going to give the class my full effort. I hate to quit in front of people, and REALLY hate to admit there’s something I can’t do. And there’s big Mistake #3.

The last thing I clearly remember are the push ups with my feet elevated on a large rubber ball. I remember thinking WOW, it’s really a lot harder to do these when my feet are above my head. But hey, I was an Army officer, if these other people can do it, so can I.

Next thing I remember, I was sitting in a chair in the lobby of the gym, a worried lady next to me taking my blood pressure while another woman ran to get me a sugary power bar from the counter. Then I took a trip in an ambulance to the emergency room. After two CT scans, one MRI and a lot of blood tests, the consensus is that my brain is fine - or as fine as it’s going to be. The CT scan showed an earlier, long ago injury to my cerebellum, but no new damage and clear carotid arteries.

I’ve been a little scared of my body ever since. The instructor called to check on me the next day, and told me that I’d done GREAT in the class, held a perfect downward dog position for quite a while after the pushups. Yowza. I guess that explains my fugue walkabout in bare feet in the parking lot.

The nice doctor switched out some meds and advised me not to perform any exercise that puts my head below my heart for an extended period of time. No duh.

If this happens at thirty - which, HEY, it DID, and I spent a week in the Army’s premiere hospital, so maybe that’s the source of the cerebellum spot - you bounce right back. At thirty, you are invincible and immortal. Bulletproof.

When you are over sixty, even a healthy over sixty, and have an ‘episode’ , you wake up a week later with a neck strain at 3 am and panic that a blood vessel is about to blow. My body seems like a stranger to me, one that I’d really like to return for a better model.

After I’d scared Herr Zen half to death with my recent emergency room visit, he gave me a bollocking about acting like I was still a kid, and that I had to ACCEPT that there are now things I can’t and shouldn’t do. I shouldn’t run a marathon, I can’t take a hot yoga aerobic class, I can’t stress my body like I used to, even on a good day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I GET it. But accepting physical limitations and resigning myself that I’m getting older, but not better, just seems like such a loser attitude.

Thankfully, I had a session with Earl the Therapist this week. After tearfully unloading every fear I’d been hiding, unsuccessfully, from my family, we got down to business. We talked about acceptance as opposed to resignation.

Earl told me a story about one of his patients when he counseled at hospice. He asked the patient if he had any goals left in his life, and the patient said he’d like to talk to his brother. Earl thought this was an easy one, until he discovered that the brothers hadn’t spoken for forty years because of a long-forgotten disagreement.

He finally located the brother, they talked on the phone, then the brother flew to the bedside for an in person reconciliation. The patient accepted that he was dying, but there were still things that he meant to accomplish, goals to meet, actions to take. Or he could have just been resigned, waiting to die, shrugged, and said, what does it matter? Nope, there’s nothing left for me.

With acceptance, you accept what’s happening, but still find positive things in the situation, you look for ways to involve yourself in what’s left. Resignation is more you give up hope and quit.

I am still wrapping my head around it. I guess I can accept that I can’t do some yoga poses, I can’t take a super-strenuous long, fast jog around the park, I can’t roll into a head stand for ten minutes, or hang by my ankles from a bar to relax my back. (Good news! I’ve never done those last two, so won’t miss them very much.) I CAN do a lot of other things. I am limber, my joints are good, I can still power through my favorite Nordic Walk circuit or a 10 k volksmarch if I pace myself.

I don’t have to resign myself to CRAP. Just figure out the work arounds and new goals. Obtainable goals that won’t make me pass out, one hopes.

Today, I watched a man about my age gracefully scuttle across the grocery store parking lot, head down, bent over, using a four prong cane. I wouldn’t have noticed him before, other than to fearfully hope my body would last a bit longer than his. Today I thought “Good for you, guy! You’ve got a new technique, you’re not going to resign yourself to using the motorized cart, you’re going to walk as long as you can - even if you have to accept that you have to walk with a cane.”

Or maybe he just had surgery and the cane is temporary. Maybe he can still work his way back to standing upright with a cane. Acceptance with new goals. OBTAINABLE goals. Realistic goals. I like the concept. (I guess I’d better, I’m sort of stuck with it.)

ANYWAY, on to our artist. His name is Gerardo Dottori, Italian (1884-1977). I love the boldness of his work, with the beams and straight lines giving texture and direction. Quite striking work. Biography from Wall Street International magazine, 2014.

"Gerardo Dottori was a pivotal figure in Italian Futurism during the inter-war years. His expansive and intensely lyrical visions of the Umbrian landscape, viewed from above, were among the earliest and most striking examples of aeropainting, which explored the dynamic perspectives of flight.

Dottori was born in Perugia and studied at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts where he excelled as a draughtsman. Around 1904 he began exploring the 'Divisionist' technique as a way of introducing life, light and colour into his work and as a means of escape from the gloom of the Academy.

Dottori recalled how he and his fellow students ‘rebelled against the teaching methods of the lectures; we tried to make them understand our discontent and our need to do something different from what was imposed on us.’

In 1909, his rebellious inclinations made Dottori receptive to the subversive agenda of F.T. Marinetti’s newly-launched Futurist movement.

A period of experimentation followed with the creation of works such as Spring which he felt captured the authentic spirit of Futurism, employing fragmented forms and vibrant colours to create a vivid sense of movement and energy. In 1912 he plunged into the Futurist adventure with great enthusiasm, co-founding one of the earliest regional Futurist groups.

Dottori continued to work while serving in the Italian army during WW1, producing drawings, paintings and poetic compositions under the pseudonym ‘G. Voglio’.

Although Futurism is most closely associated with its celebration of the flux and dynamism of the modern industrial age, Dottori often expressed his preference for ‘the stillness of the countryside and the mountains to the deafening noise of big cities’.

And it was his native region of Umbria, with its lush, undulating landscape, to which he remained most deeply attached throughout his life. His Self Portrait of 1928, in which Dottori depicts himself embedded among its hills and lakes, is symbolic of the deep bond he felt with this rural environment.

Well, I can’t do a downward dog for longer than ten seconds, but I can stand upright and paint at an easel. If I’d been given the choice, I’d pick Art, so I guess it’s all turned out okay. How can I complain? (Pretty damn easily. Maybe I can try some stork or sunrise poses between brush strokes. Hmm.)