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Staying Centered

Sara J. Corse, PhD
February 20, 2006

"Cradled All the While: The Unexpected Gifts of a Mother's Death," is a beautifully crafted memoir about caring for a dying mother. But it is about much more. It is about the ever-present struggle for connection and independence in family relationships. It is about the healing power of love. It is about new possibilities arising from the ashes of grief and loss.

In the following excerpt from "Cradled All the While," author Sara J. Corse, Ph.D. (Director, University City Office, Council for Relationships), talks about figure skating - learning to center a spin - as a metaphor for emotional and spiritual centering. Maintaining a sense of center is difficult, particularly when we are faced with work and family demands. But when we find inner balance, we have more to offer the people we love. As you read this excerpt, think about the activities or passions in your life that help you feel centered. 

Copyrighted Material
Prologue
October 1997

"Let me see your scratch spin." 

My coach begins my weekly figure-skating lesson with the forward one-footed spin, an element I've been struggling to master for months. Some people are natural-born spinners, but I can't find my center. I spiral out of control instead of whirling in place like a top. 

"Bring your free leg around with energy.

"Don't leave your right arm behind.

"Stand up, stand up, stand up!" my coach calls out encouragement as I fight for balance.

His suggestions strike me as good advice for more than skating.

As a child I skated on ponds and makeshift rinks, played crack-the-whip and freeze tag with the quick-footed hockey boys and pretended that I was Peggy Fleming. The winter Peggy took home the gold, my sister, Jen, and I lay on the living-room rug, cradling our chins in our hands and watching the Olympic skating competition. During the commercials, we twirled and jumped on the polished wooden floor. Our mother, who loved the speed, grace and poise of figure skaters and ballerinas, egged us on, laughing at our awkward but energetic performance.

"Don't knock my crutches over," Mom's voice dropped an octave in warning as we leapt too close to where they were propped against the doorjamb. My mother hadn't run or danced or skated since collapsing at the bus stop at the age of twenty-one, feverish and aching, a newly graduated Phi Beta Kappa stripped of strength and confidence by polio. 

Suddenly alert to our commotion, my father peered at my sister and me over the top of his newspaper with one eyebrow arched. I paused with the rustling of paper, ready to claim I'd already stopped whatever it was he disapproved of, while Jen, three years younger than I and naively exuberant, continued to whirl recklessly around the room. But Dad's eyes twinkled as he watched us. He wasn't going to bark. Maybe his ulcer wasn't acting up. Maybe his boss hadn't blamed him for someone else's mistakes today. 

I leapt and spun again. 

As the commercial ended, Jen and I settled on the floor for the next skater's program.

I dreamt of sit-spins and double axels, was star-struck when the Canadian men's junior champion graced our small town with a performance, and on Friday nights, met my friends at the flooded tennis courts that served as our local ice rink. But with no means or opportunity to pursue skating lessons, my ambitions melted with the ice each spring, and by the time I entered high school, had evaporated completely.

My chance to learn figure skating came nearly thirty years later and quite unexpectedly. A few months after my mother's death, I registered my three young children for hockey and ice-skating lessons at a city rink and learned that a class for adults was scheduled during the same hour. I immediately signed up; then, dodging the puddles on the warming room floor, I exchanged my sneakers for a pair of dull-edged rental skates and prepared to join my classmates on the ice. 

We began with basic forward stroking, gliding on one foot and skating backwards. I was surprised at how seemingly minor corrections in body position and weight distribution, suggested by the teacher, dramatically improved my skating. We continued on to learn front and back crossovers and were tackling two-footed spinning when the six-week session ended. By then my earlier passion for skating was rekindled.

The early days of skating were rich with epiphany for me. It was exhilarating to step onto the ice and be caught up in the joy of movement, to speed around the rink at the far edge of control, and to discover that I had an aptitude for skating. I had never envisioned taking up a dangerous and demanding sport in my late thirties. .Suddenly I couldn't get enough of skating-an unknown, unexplored aspect of self was coming to life.

I marveled at the physical abandon I experienced on the ice. As a child I responded to my mother's delight in watching me dance around the house or skip down the street by putting in an extra twirl or hop to make her laugh. But I was aware even then that polio prevented her from experiencing the enjoyment of movement and flow, except vicariously, and I always held something back. With her death the joy of movement was released in me.

I began to recognize that skating is more than just a physical challenge for me; it is a form of meditation and of healing. When I step onto the ice, I forget that I am a mother of three, a psychologist, a grieving daughter. I bring full attention to my bending knees, balanced weight, extended neck. There is no time to hesitate or to entertain the worries of the day when I am preparing to jump in the air or enter the vortex of a spin. A lapse in concentration could mean a broken wrist or a concussion, so I think only of skating. In that clarity of mind and focus on one thing, I am open to bliss; I discover a self that is free from entanglement with the expectations of others or with my need to please. 

My skating reflects a deeper search for centeredness off the ice-in my spirit, sense of self and relationships. I strive to be fully present in each moment, even when surrounded by piles of dirty laundry, clashing egos at work, crowds in a supermarket, or a dispute between siblings. I often fail, losing my center in life's frenzy.

Skating teaches me self-acceptance. It is tempting to compare myself to other skaters, to dwell on my inadequacies, to feel inept. Instead I remind myself that I am a beginner-and with a beginner's mind, I have everything to gain and nothing to lose. 

My coach is patient. He knows myriad ways to coax my mid-life muscles and soothe my apprehensions. One day he offers a lesson in the physics of spinning. "Remember, a spin is arrested forward movement. As you swing your right side around to the front, your left side has to be there to meet it. The energy collides to send you into the spin. Then you have to hold the center."

I am determined to find and hold the center. I refuse to be disappointed by the large looping coils I etch on the ice, and I try again to carve concentric circles beneath my blades. I practice spinning at home in my socks on the dining room floor, and when even that is impossible, I spin in my imagination, imperceptibly pressing the ball of my foot to the kitchen floor while peeling potatoes.

"Hold your left side firm," my coach says again and again. "It needs to be there for the right side to meet it. If the left side keeps moving, it will always be out of reach."

The center is never formed; there is only the dance of pursuit.

Off the ice I consider the confrontation of forces that creates a centered spin - accelerating energy encountering a presence holding firm - and I notice how the same dynamic occurs in human relationships. We all need strong holding at times, to be received by someone who isn't derailed by our flailing or floundering but who embraces our energy-in-motion, helping to channel it into our center. It is what a good coach does for an athlete, a teacher for a student, a mentor for a trainee. It is one of the finest gifts a parent can offer a child-steady holding-enough to help her find her center. 

I remember my own quiet, aching search for emotional holding from my mother. Somewhere in the seeking, my neediness tapped hers-her anger, anxiety, lack of self-confidence, or frustration-and so began the chasing without catching. Drawn into the swirling eddy of her need, any sense of beginning or ending was lost-I was no longer the pursuer, but the pursued.

To learn how to hold, we must first be held. 

The good news is that life offers many opportunities.

My skating coach encourages me to correct my position in the middle of a spin, to find balance and fight centrifugal force even when my entry is off center. He convinces me that it's not too late, and assures me that I'll have as many chances as I need to learn. He draws my attention to the single spot on the quarter-inch slice of metal blade that is the foundation of a spin-the sweet spot, it's called-and urges me to find it and trust it. 

The first time I succeed in centering a spin, I find eternity at its core. When forward motion is arrested, time indeed stands still. "Invite the kids in here to join me! Have lunch delivered! I don't ever want to leave this place!" I laugh, giddy with delight. 

It is T. S. Eliot's "still point of the turning world." 

It is God and love and mystery.

Someday I will learn to center my spins and give over to the wild stillness that forms inside each one. Even when I'm discouraged, convinced that I'll never train my body or tackle my fears, I remember that I've been surprised by grace before. 

It was in the midst of turmoil-caring for my mother as she was dying and battling the sharp resurgence of grief for my father's death twenty years before-that I found firm holding, even as I was holding firm. That experience, more than any coincidence of time and place and opportunity, led me into a pair of skates, onto the ice and on the path to my center. 

My mother's final gift to me was given when she was beyond believing that she had anything left to offer anyone, and was received when I was long past expecting anything from her.

From Cradled All the While: the Unexpected Gifts of a Mother's Death by Sara J. Corse, © 2004 Sara J. Corse. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Augsburg Fortress.

To learn more about "Cradled All the While", or to order a copy, click on one of the links below. Your purchase through this link will help support programs at Council for Relationships.

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Sara J. Corse, PhD is the Director of Council for Relationships' University City office. She can be reached at 215.382.6680 ext. 3117 or click here to send her an email.

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