[6] Tournelle du Soleil: Intake, Continued (Patreon)

CW: today's instalment references body image and weight

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15 May 2023: First Day at Cirque IHQ – Intake

The intake continues.

She tests the range of motion of every joint in my body, which responds by cracking loudly like a glowstick. Each time she asks, “No pain?” and I reply in the affirmative - “no pain”. I still end up not being able to help giggling that this is the moment in time my body has decided to be as vocal as possible. It helps with the nervousness.

She has me hop off the table and walks me over to one of the many shiny machines lining the wall. She takes my height, and then gestures to a second machine. “Take your socks off and stand on the two silver plates there,” Mireille says, pointing to the square black platform in front of us. As I do, I realize that I’m about to weighed. Oh cripes.

167.3. Alright, that’s what I expected. She pulls up two handles to the side and instructs me to grip them, placing my thumbs on a small oval of metal on each one. Mireille punches in my age, my height, my weight. “Don’t let go until I say.” She presses a button and a readout begins appearing on the screen, line by line. I realize it’s doing a body composition test. Oh no.   The first line reads, WEIGHT: UNDER (yellow bars), NORMAL (green bars), OVER (red bars). There’s two yellow bars in the “under” category”; and two green bars in the “normal” category. I remain calm on the outside but the inside of my head is whipping thoughts around like leaves in a tornado.

Two bars? Is it equal across all categories? Is there 2 in yellow, 3 in normal, and 2 in red? Or is it two in each? How precise is this? I have two greens bars. Oh no that means I’m closer to the red bars than I am to the yellow bars! I should be closer to the yellow bars, probably. Wait – Ess, what are you thinking, you don’t want to be underweight. But wouldn’t it be better if it was ONE green bar? Wow buddy I can’t believe you’re thinking th–  The machine clicks over to the next line, an acronym that I’m not sure the meaning of. A second, third, and fourth acronym show up, all using the same 2 bars-of-color-per-category system. A couple of them have a single bar of red. Most of them read two bars of green. Mireille tells me it’s measuring my bone density and things like that. “It’s not that accurate though,” she adds, wrinkling her nose. “I’ve seen measurements change for athletes from day to day based on how hydrated or dehydrated they are; the machine is measuring how long it takes for a current to pass through the body, but if the water content in the body or inflammation in the body or something else is different from day to day then the readings are going to be different from day to day, too.”

“Ah,” I say, nodding. My treacherous mind takes in this information and then lets it slough off like the surface of my brain is covered in a rainbow oil slick of old habits dying hard.

While I sit there contemplating the weight of flesh and bones, and how quickly a lifetime of female socialization can come roaring back to the surface, Mireille is chatting with the other physio in the office about what other tests need to be done for me. It’s decided that a concussion baseline test needs to be done as well. We go over my concussion history (not short) and then do a variety of memory tests. “This part is to establish a baseline if we ever need to come back to assessing you after a concussion at work,” she explains.

She recites a string of numbers to me: I have to say them back, in reverse. First it’s a sequence of 3 numbers, then 4 numbers, then multiple strings of 5 and 6 digits.

We do balance tests: how am I at walking in a thin straight line, one foot in line with the other? how long can I stand on one foot with my eyes open? How long can I stand on each foot with my eyes closed?   I have to listen to her say 10 words, and then say back as many as I can. Paper, sugar, blanket, lemon … sandwich.

We repeat it three times. I get more each time. Paper, sugar, blanket, wagon, lemon…sandwich…

Paper pencil sugar blanket wagon finger lemon sandwich …   And then at the end, after she’s circled back to some more general questions, she asks one more time. I nail all ten. “Your working memory is great,” she says cheerfully. That’s a first, I think to myself.

“Alright, you’re all done with me,” she continues. “You can go out on the gym floor and start warming up. Whoever is gonna evaluate you for your strength & conditioning should be here soon.”

“Did I … pass?” I say, trying and failing to keep the edge of nervousness out of my voice.  “Oh, yeah, yes.”

Great. Yes. Okay. One thing down. Now the strength tests. Whatever those are going to be. I think about the giant men who had been blasting through their morning weights workout when I walked in and wilted internally a bit. I hope it’s not busting out 25 pullups. I’d been spending the past 3 weeks in rehearsal-mode for finishing my new straps piece, Le Numéro Barbette – and those 3 weeks had pretty involved non-stop sessions with my pullers or costumer or lighting designer or artistic advisors, just trying to bring all the pieces together to a place where I would feel okay sharing them. Those 3 weeks had not involved conditioning like a monster for a Cirque du Soleil strength & conditioning test.

I round the corner from the physio treatment area back out onto the main gym floor. There’s less, and different, people than there were an hour ago. I hop on an exercise bike to try to get my body warmer and while I’m there a few other acrobats come up and introduce themselves. Handshakes are offered, names are exchanged. I meet a few guys from the PPP program (_________); a hoop diver who’s rehabbing their knee while they wait for an ACL surgery; a couple guys who’re prepping an act to go onto CRYSTAL. With each one, I feel a little better. I watch and see that everyone is doing this with each other. I feel a little less anxious and closed off with each new name I learn. There’s no reason to be intimidated. It’s a friendly environment.

Everyone is so strong though, whispers my brain. I hop off the bike, grab a thin mat, and find a low-foot-traffic corner of the gym floor to start stretching out a little on.

I wish I could be doing the strength and conditioning things I see the others doing. But my focus needs to be on being bendy for contortion. Stiffening up my body with neurologically taxing or pump-building exercising is the absolute last thing I need right now if I’m trying to set myself up for success when I finally get in that new apparatus for the first time today. I need to be soft. I need to be bendy. I grab my bag of minibands to start in on some physio exercises and active flexibility drills.

I wish I was bendier still, my brain jumps back in.  Deep breaths, buddy, I tell myself. You’re a good performer. It’s fine that you’re not the bendiest. You’re gonna get in that new box there this afternoon and you’re gonna feel out what you can do. You’re gonna do your best, and that’s all you can do.

And then –

A tall man in black track pants and a black T-shirt with a small TOTEM logo on it strides into the gym. A sweep of silver hair is brushed to the side atop square serious brows, a long straight nose, and an equally serious mouth set in a slight frown.

SERGEY!

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Your next instalment of Tournelle du Soleil will land tomorrow at 7am EST / 1pm CEST. Until then, stay strange & wonderful~ XO - ess