American Election An Expat Perspective

To me it’s not about politics. It’s not about liberal or conservative or agreeing to disagree on what we each think is the best way to ensure that the US is a great place to live.

It’s about the values I thought we held regardless of our political leanings.

After hearing the election results on November 9, I cried. I felt a gut wrenching fear and despair that knowing there was no turning back. I walked out the door and wanted to keep walking right off the planet. My disappointment was magnified thousand-fold with the heartbreaking knowledge that half of the nation believes in a leader whose platform was filled with empty slogans and derogatory rhetoric based on repression, intolerance, bigotry, misogyny and ignorance.

I know that realistically not all those who voted support those views and that they have very legitimate reasons for wanting change, I know that for many it was an act of anger, frustration and hopelessness, not racism or misogyny. But it’s hard for me to feel that in so-voting, those views, which I find so abhorrent and antithetical to the very rights we fought so hard for in the past, weren’t being endorsed. Regardless of what happens at a policy-level, I’m fearful of the message that has been sent, of the noxious sentiment that has been aroused, and of the no-longer unrealistic possibility that the rights we have fought for could be taken away, or at the very least not truly be guaranteed for all.

I understood why thousands of Americans took to the streets in protest chanting, « Not my President. »

Not my country either. Not the country I loved so dearly for defending the unalienable rights we hold so true … liberty, justice and freedom for all, not just those who shout the loudest or have the biggest bank accounts or have ancestors born in Western Europe and have less melanin in their skin.

Having lived in Europe for the past 37 years, perhaps I have no right to judge. I do not know what it feels like to be stopped in the street for the color of my skin. Or to be a working class man facing unemployment when my job was outsourced overseas. Or to be homeless waiting in line for a food pantry hand-out. Nor the despair of watching my child grow sicker and weaker due to an inability to afford health care.

But I do know the fear of standing in line in a French immigration office fearing that I will be deported. I do know the humility of depending on German teammates for a roof over my head. And I do know the gratitude of people – international friends and colleagues – who ignored where I came from and accepted me for who I was.

And I know what it feels like to be left out. In the early Title IX days, I left the USA to pursue a dream denied in my homeland. In 1979, I moved to Europe on the heels of the Vietnam War at the height of the Cold War, during the Reagan era.

While living abroad, I tried to mitigate the stereotype of the loud, arrogant, ethnocentric American by speaking softly and keeping a low profile. I demonstrated the ideals of tolerance on which my country was founded by showing respect for others who worshiped different deities, spoke different languages and practiced different customs. As a guest in others homelands, I discovered firsthand through friendship the beauty in our diversity.

I came back to a nation where people were more connected than ever on social media, yet profoundly divided in real life and unable to communicate in civil terms.

Recently retired from teaching abroad, I stayed in the states longer and followed the election with mounting alarm, stunned not just by how vitriolic it turned, but how easily we condoned it. When did the election in one of the greatest democracies become more about digging up dirt on one’s opponent than discussing critical policy issues?

I felt as if I’d been flung back in time to an era when women were objectified, Jim Crow Laws kept blacks in their place, and gays hid in the closet for safety. Trump gave free licence to discrimination. His dismissal of anyone who is not a white American male echoes an Aryan supremacist ideology that nearly destroyed us.

« Make American great again ! » Trump proclaims. What was great about America was that everyone had an opportunity to pursue the Dream.

« Build walls to keep out immigrants ! » America was built on the backbone of immigrants who came here for a better life.

On the heels of Brexit, Trump’s victory, following a campaign filled with disdain for women, minorities, immigrants, gays and the disabled only fuels the extreme right of the world. Marie Le Pen is kicking up her heels in France; Geert Wilders is dancing in Holland. .

The nightmare I woke up to November 9 reverberates around the globe. We may only worry about what is happening in our neighbourhood, and I get that, but what we don’t realize is that, like it or not, any decision made in America affects the rest of world, environmentally, socially, and economically.

We need to remember that regardless of our political party, religious affiliation, national identity, race or gender, we don’t own this planet.

We cannot go back and change the outcome of the election, but that does not mean we should give up on those ideals. We can speak up for those who are victimized or do not have a voice. We can continue to teach our children to treat everyone with kindness and respect. We can encourage the many politicians in both parties who have condemned Trump’s racist and misogynistic rhetoric to continue to do so.

We can do better.

We must.

Why Me Syndrome

Ever suffer from the why me syndrome? Those times you are immobilized by anger, frustration, and fatigue and wondering why you have to go through whatever it is you are enduring. Anyone who knows me knows that I have coped with an abundant amount of physical pain. Some of it was self-inflicted during my career as a pro athlete, but most of it accidental, random sh**.

I don’t have to look far for inspiration to find someone who is fighting an even greater challenge. Compared to others, my life is not so bad. I have lost friends to cancer, suicide, and bad, bad bugs like MSRA. I have friends who are coping with MS, diabetes, and depression.

I have friends enduring the crippling loss of a parent, child, sibling, spouse or friend. I know people facing surgery, dealing with dialysis, and going through chemo. I have friends who encounter each day without complaint, staring down each personal setback with dignity.

Early on, we must learn life is not fair. We don’t get to pick our opponents. Some obstacles are insurmountable. Some rivals are bigger, stronger, better. Some battles cannot be won, no matter how hard we fight.

I have cried a million tears, pounded my bed in despair and prayed to the heavens. Why am I here if only to suffer?

Because suffering is universal.

It is what makes us human.

Life is not fair. It is not fair that I was born into a stable, loving family. That as a child, I grew up with 3 of my 4 grandparents still living to help shape me. That my community was so safe I could play outside until the street lights came on. That doors opened for women in sports that had been forever closed offering me opportunities to travel and compete. That my father was a coach and I, an athlete, so I had a head start. That I met my soul mate half way across the globe. His family adopted me just as mine cherished him helping us to create a new cross cultural, bilingual family. That I had not only one, but two children that enrich my life. That I have loyal, steadfast friends and former students and athletes scattered around the globe cheering me on in my darkest moments.

Thanks to all of you who reached out to support me with calls, comments, text messages, FB shout outs and emails.

I have been blessed beyond measure. As I roll out of bed onto the floor and into the downward dog to stretch my limbs that lock up overnight, I toss-up a prayer.

To all of you grappling with the loss of loved ones, job insecurity, crazy bosses, growing older and the gamut of emotions ranging from rage to fear to anxiety that are an inherent part of the human condition, I hope you have the resiliency to weather the next storm.

As you face a new day, I wish you Bon Courage.

Be bold, be brave, believe.

Embrace life…a gift at any age.

Back from the Brink

As if enduring chemo, without the cancer, I slipped off the planet into a free-fall spinning out of control. Out of commission, I disconnected from the real world incapable of answering email, writing blogs, telephoning friends. It was all I could do just to survive another day.

I feared going out in public because I could no longer trust my body. Dodging the throng of shoppers at Costco, I darted towards the nearest bin bag and doubled over heaving at the end of the fresh cut meat aisle.

At times my heart raced and I felt breathless. Other times I was dizzy and nauseous. In my worst moments I puked, barfing up breakfast or lunch. My entire existence became limited to timing my next medicine dosage and figuring out what I could eat, when and how to keep food inside.

As the days dragged on, my body shut down, so did my brain. Like a wounded, ol’dog, I wanted to drag my weary carcass off to a dark corner to lie down and die.

What precipitated this spiral of descent? In July I began a treatment to fight parasites in my blood, another evil component of my multi system inflammatory disease. Protozoa, unlike bacteria, are the same cell type as human cells. Antibiotics can differentiate better between your cells and bacteria cells, but anti-protozoan meds will also effect your own cells. Consequently, the most effective medications are extremely difficult to tolerate creating a chemo-like effect.

First came the shakes, queasiness, fatigue, disengagement, disassociation then the vertigo, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and severe orthostatic hypo-tension. Rising from a sitting position, made me faint. I was so winded going up the stairs I had to sit down every other step to catch my breath. Walking up a slight incline left me doubled over gasping as though I had just run a mile.

I knew something was seriously wrong for even in my favorite place among my favorite peeps, I felt despair. Mere communication required too much effort. I didn’t want my family to worry, so I tried fake it, but fooled no one.

“What is wrong mom?” my kids asked. “You aren’t talking and you always have something to say.”

The weird plethora of symptoms made me feel like I was going crazy, but I did not look sick until the weight dropped – 15 pounds off my lean 5’10 frame. I begged my doctor let me stop the meds for a few weeks, so that I could regain my strength and sanity in a mini break from the antibiotic, anti parasite, anti fungus regime.

Within a day the nausea subsided and I could take in calories. The level of fatigue and dys

pnea lessened, the depression lifted.

A part of me felt angry for the all the sublime summer days I’d lost while curled up in a dark room clinging to the sides of bed to keep me from spinning off earth.

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Summit Lake - end of summer

But another part of me knew that there was no better place to heal than at the lake where the quiet woods and calm waters coupled with the love of family allowed me to endure one day at a time. Chronic illness is not for the feint hearted and I am a warrior. My fighting spirit is back; I am ready for the next battle.

Sharing My Story at the International Women’s Day Celebration

As someone who grew up in a time period when women, like children, should be seen, not heard, I grew up without a voice. I wrote Home Sweet Hardwood, a Title IX Trailblazer Breaks Barriers Through Basketball to tell the story of the pioneers. Since its publication, I have been invited to speak at dozens of functions including ironically those hosted by organizations like the Rotary, Kiwanis and NCAA, who for years denied access to women. I never passed up a chance to share our story and felt especially privileged to be invited to speak to the next generation at the International School of Zurich (ZIS) for their International Women’s Day March 8th celebration.

“International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.”

Coincidentally, the United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) as part of the International Women’s Year 1975, which was the same year the groundbreaking Title IX (June 23, 1972) was to be in regulation. This year, the IWD theme “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step it Up For Gender Equality” focuses on women’s empowerment and women’s human rights.

As a misfit in an era when female athletes (especially in team sport) were ostracized from society, I grew up on the fringes of girl groups, hanging out as one of the boys. In adulthood, as a basketball coach in a field dominated by male coaches, officials, and athletic directors, I often felt like the odd “man” out. It has been a pleasure to see more women joining the ranks in sports and to offer a tribute to the women and men who contributed to women’s rights advancement in my homeland.

Gradually, Title IX revolutionized women’s lives in America by opening doors to education and athletics. Though we may be growing closer to gender parity in the West, women lag far behind in many parts of the world. Women are subject to sex abuse and domestic violence and continue to be denied access to health care, education and equal opportunity in the work place.

The need to celebrate women’s day remains crucial.

“Everyone – men and women – can pledge to take a concrete step to help achieve gender parity more quickly and each of us can be a leader within our own spheres of influence and commit to take pragmatic action to help include and advance women.”

Change begins with one voice, one dream, one step.

On March 8^th, I will be speaking in a room filled with girls from around the globe, movers and shakers of the next era, who will go on to become doctors, lawyers, diplomats, and leaders in their own countries. It dawned on me, maybe, my role all along was not to play ball, but to share my experience to inspire, to light the fire, and pass the torch to a younger generation who can use their talents to make this a better world.

I finally know who I am… an international woman.

Please join us in the party. Take time to celebrate the women in your life and make a pledge for parity.

fascinating timeline – be patient, takes long to upload, but it is worth waiting

Ten Tips for Survival When Sidelined by Back Pain

I am back. I missed my friends out in the global blogosphere. When I logged out before the holidays, I did not intend to be away so long, but s*** happens.

Especially when you have a bad back. I am only a sneeze away from a catastrophe. Some people who have never suffered from back pain, poo poo the idea that back pain can be so incapacitating, but once it happens to you, you know.

Was it one too many cross Atlantic flights, too many basketball road trips, too many holiday cookies, who knows? But due to a major flare up, I was out of commission. I struggled to endure my school day. Every free minute I wasn’t preparing lesson plans or school reports, I spent lying flat or in therapy – deep tissue massage, spinal adjustments, thermal baths.

Stretch, walk, teach, rest, repeat.

Take one crooked old spine and an arthritic neck, add two herniated lumbar disks, three compressed dorsal vertebrae, and what do you get? One heck of a backache! My body has undergone a lifetime of trauma. Bad back is an understatement. Yet if you look at me, except for the basketball player slouch, from ducking through too many low French doorways, you’d never know, how I struggle to remain upright and shuffling forward. For any of you who suffer from chronic back pain or an occasional flare up, I put together a few tried and true tips.

Never jump out of bed – flop on the floor first and roll like a ball

Stretch – at regular intervals. Legs against wall, arms stretched overhead in L shape for a full body stretch.

Exercise – walk, swim, bike but avoid high impact sports.

Avoid sitting

Limit computer time – strains your neck, shoulders, and wrists

Take rest breaks flat out – stash a yoga matt under the couch, in the kitchen, at the office

When it hurts too much to stand upright, crawl (preferably on carpet,) to loosen the SI joint and hips

Use heating pads, thermal baths, body pillows, heat lamps, cold packs

Do whatever you can to keep mobile

Then ice baby ice!

A lifetime of hard hits, accidents, and high intensity competitive sports has left me fragile, but I am not broken. As long as this ol’ heart keeps ticking, I will fight to put one foot in front of other. I have tried every alternate therapy out there to avoid undergoing the knife.

Why not opt for surgery? I have too many weak links. Do you know anyone moving around with a total spinal fusion?

Nooo, give me my chiropractors, masseurs, physical therapists. From all my research and experience this is one area where integrative medicine and non-surgical intervention have the best long-term results.

That said I am always looking for the newest, non-invasive cure all. Next summer, if I can save enough money, I may head back to Wisconsin to my all time favorite chiropractor to try deep tissue, heat laser therapy. He and his brother use this to treat elite athletes including those giant cheese heads in the green and yellow jerseys. Hey, if it is good enough for the Greenbay Packers, it may work for this crazy, headstrong gal who got sacked one too many times in the game of life.

What is your best trick for coping with a bad back?

Happy Father’s Day – Thanks for the Swimming Lesson

My dad taught me to drive a car, shoot hoops, catch frogs, paddle a canoe, and swim laps. When I was just a hyperactive little kid, he tired of shooing me off the “dangerous” dock. Finally, he reasoned it would safer to teach me to swim than to keep track of my free spirited meanderings near the lake and in the woods.

He held my hand as I stepped off the sandy beach into the icy lake. Together we walked out over my head. While my dad’s strong arms held me afloat, I put my face in the water and blew bubbles. He taught me the crawl stroke, flutter kick and to cup my hands. “Reach forward, pull back.” He helped me master the trickiest part – how to breathe without swallowing half the lake.

Though I never had a near drowning experience, swimming saved my life. After a bad bike crash and later a debilitating car accident, I became trapped in a body that no longer worked quite right. My hoop dreams disintegrated. My aspirations of skiing down mountainsides and running marathons dissolved. I hung up my high tops, tennis racket, baseball glove; I set aside my football, basketball, volleyball.

I was condemned to the pool where the buoyancy of the water kept me from further injuring my spine and joints. Early on, I became a has-been athlete plagued with bad feet, bad knees and a broken back. The scars of my past calamities never really left me; the sharp twinges and shooting, throbbing, stabbing aches remained. But magically, weightless in water, I became pain free.

To an athlete being confined to a pool seemed like a death sentence. Yet, after every misfortune, I retreated to the healing waters. Gradually, it seemed like my savior; swimming became my solace, my meditation, my prayer.

As a child I learned to swim at my grandparents Camp Ney-A-Ti on Summit Lake. In my teens, I swam through summers at the old Emerald Hill pool. In adulthood, when pregnant – and ordered to bed rest for 3 months to prevent premature births – I begged the doctor to let me swim. In a Parisian pool, I bonded with my unborn child, gliding in sync alongside the baby kicking inside me.

Over the years, I even saved a few lives as a lifeguard. And I once dragged the semi conscious high school quarterback from the pump room when he became asphyxiated from the chlorine. But the real hero of my swimming story was my dad. He taught me to believe that no matter how rough the seas or how high the waters, I would never sink.

With each stroke of my arm and kick of my leg, I repeated the mantra he ingrained, “Never give up.”

Dad thought he was showing me the frog kick, freestyle, and breaststroke, but really he was teaching me how to survive.

As a child, my dad let go, so I could take my first strokes solo. Now as an adult I swim in bliss from one side of the lake to the other. Dad, like a lifeguard, sits on the dock, observing each stroke as if he could save me should a boat comes crashing into my path, or a leg cramp pull me under.

We have come full circle. We both know there is no way that my 83-year-old father could rescue me especially when I am swimming 150 feet from shore at the far end of the lake. But I feel safer, just knowing he is there, watching over me with his benevolent eyes.