In My Immanence

There is a theme I follow. I have written of it here before--the dichotomy of transcendence and immanence. In my feminist training this became a foundational theoretical paradigm. Not in the sense that I adopted that paradigm as a reality, but in the sense that it is one of the most critical dualisms to deconstruct in any feminist work. The body, traditionally, is associated with the feminine. The origin of this association is understood as linked to childrearing for the most part and the way in which the female body has been historically perceived as a receptical. (Women learn to know this is not true and that their search for pleasure is not passive, but nevertheless this understanding comes from opposing the dominant norm. Male is associated with the cerebral, the thinking, the rational, the knowing. Men are physicians, scholars, lawyers, etc. they use their heads once the needs of their bodies are met through penetrating women's immanence. Or, something like that anyways--I am a little rusty at this stuff. Of course there is also the whole critique of the two sexes themselves and the descriptive clarification between gender and sex...but none of that is relevant to what I would like to say right now. I am at an interesting place in my healing. In the hospital I was uber-immanent. Grounded, literally to a bed, held there by tubes and machines that would go with me, even to the bathroom (I would have to unplug my little techno friend for any trip from bed). And for a few days going to the bathroom was a heavy task. Only five feet from my bed, each time I would spend several minutes mustering the nerve to raise my body, place my feet on the ground shuffle into the bathroom and sit down. The first day after surgery the nurses aid told me we needed to go on a walk and I really couldn't fathom donig any such thing. Because she was insistent and sweet I sat up and really tried to stand, but it made me feel sick and sore and I said "Please, can I wait" and she said "Of course, just the fact you sat up is really good. " Totally immanent. And this was me, the me who used to train for marathons (even if my shins never allowed me to actually race in them). The me who always moves more quickly then my size leads people to expect I will. The me who loves to walk and run and ride and hike. I simply did not want to move at all. One night, I felt pretty good. I managed 3 laps round the floor and paused at the fishtank. Feleing very zen and meditative I tried some calf raising and a tiny little bit of knee bending. Boy did I pay for that in the morning I was sore, and sick and grumpy. Immanent. Once home, my mobility increased significantly. Whereas the first night home I really needed help getting out of bed (the hospital beds automatic recline and raise function is definately the only thing I miss) soon I could raise my body on my own. After my birthday celebration with family at my house, I was very spent and could not get in the bed. C had to bring the step stool that the boys use to reach the sink and that is what I have been using ever sense. it just makes it much easier. At night I become profoundly immanent. All my nerves seem to collapse after the boys go down and I fall into the sensation of the wounds that are healing. My heart races and I find it hard to breathe--I get scared and have some series of irrational fears about being alone and not able to be, well, capable of transcending the limits within which my body is currently required to function. I am alone with the kids this week (but not really as family and friends are ever present it seems.) But in some ways I am, as only another parent holds the same responsibility for the care of the children. My immanence scares me in this case. What if they need me to transcend the limits of my body and I can't? Today the boys and I actually ventured out on a walk. For the first time, I was, by far, the slowest pedestrian. I had to be conscious of how far we went, not so that my youngest would be able to make it back, but so I could make it back and make it back without him wanting to be carried. It felt so good to feel my feet on a foothills trail. I could sense the uneveness of the ground penetrating my loafers contributing to my body's healing via stimulating the meridians on my soles. I could see myself at the interchange in the dualism. Standing in the cool sun with my boys, unable to scamper up the hill, but still so much further from that bed and those beeps and needles and tubes. Already moving away from the requirements of basic bodily functions. But this is the trick: Those requirements are always present. We never do transcend them. Sure, we may bridge the divide in a daily synthesis where the hierarchy of the rational mind takes precedence over bodily need. But nevertheless, they are not mutually exclusive phenomena of life. They are mutually reliant processes of living. To re-member such a thing seems to me one of the greatest lessons of this most recent corporeal trial I have experienced. One I hope to hold onto as my desire to transcend becomes stronger each day that I do.