Wistful, Ludicrous, And Bleak– And All From The Same Assignment

The Rumpus publishes a mix of essays and interviews. It’s an online-only publication.

For me, a Rumpus assignment is always a stretch. Some of the material is very dark. It takes me out of my comfort zone.

My latest Rumpus assignment: an essay titled Strong Is The New Sexy, written by a woman with a degenerative muscle disease.

The essay opens with the author in a hospital room. A physical therapist is teaching her how to swallow. Through the window she can see brightly colored hang gliders soaring through the air after casting off from a mountain.

It conjured up this image for me:

Here’s a close-up:

Further along in the essay, the author writes that sipping water can seem more trouble than it’s worth. That to a weakened arm, “a bottle of spring water is as hard to raise as a dumbbell.”

Here’s a detail image. I’ve read more than once that a lot of bottled water is simply tap water. I couldn’t resist sneaking in an editorial comment. I must admit, however,
I’ve never seen a goldfish in a bottle of store-bought water.

Finally, the therapist “handwrites recommendations on jaunty yellow paper, warns me against the use of straws for sipping.”

This made me think of the idiom “grasping (or clutching) at straws,” which can be defined as trying to find some way to succeed when nothing is likely to work.

Progressive diseases worsen over time. It seemed bitterly ironic to me that straws should
be forbidden (even though it made perfect medical sense, since sucking water through a straw would likely make the woman choke).

All of which conjured up this very bleak image:

For me, the most affecting note in the illustration is that straws were available to the drowning woman, but grasping at them was prohibited.

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Do you think the darkly comic element in the illustrations gives them added poignancy?

Did you know there was such a thing as Butterfly Envy?

Ever found anything swimming in your pure and natural bottled spring water??

Hope you’ll leave a comment.

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