Ups and Downs

Relief is what you feel on rides at Disney. It happens after you face the ordeal of death halfway through the experience. Amusement park designers understand this.They build the idea of death and rebirth into the ride as part of the Hero’s Journey. You must have the ups and downs of the journey or the ride isn’t worth taking.  

Thrills like “Space Mountain” teach us how to let go and give in to fear. This is less hard for those who embrace fear or terror, the people who love horror films, scary movies. That’s never been me. I would have gladly sat this ride out. But once I gave in and climbed on board, I gained something from being flung into the far reaches of infinity. The sense of relief that came afterward.

You can see my family in the photo. We’re the four upfront. I’m the reluctant hero in the second seat.

Most of what I know about the Hero’s Journey comes from Christopher Vogler who applied Joseph Campbell’s mythic story patterns in his book “The Writer’s Journey.” Vogler was working as a story consultant for Disney when he wrote a memo applying the elements of the Hero’s Journey to the world of film. The memo was widely shared across studios and took on a life of its own.     

In my journey, my knee continued to decline on our trip and by the time we returned to Portland, my calendar was filled with surgery and oncology appointments and my knee was in bad shape. Monday night I had the first class of the term to teach and several blocks to walk due to campus construction. I promptly stepped in a pothole and did a lateral slip and crunched my knee even more. I hobbled to the class building, found an elevator, and stood up front for four hours. After the last of the students piled out, I couldn’t budge. I pivoted to the elevator, then out the door. The campus was vacant and I had forgotten my phone. The side streets were empty except for sketchy characters from the local bars. If anyone confronted me, I was as helpless as the woman in the commercial: “I’ve fallen and can’t get up.”  Pivoting back to my car took me thirty-five minutes. 

I attended my medical appointments on crutches wearing a knee brace. People mistook me for having knee surgery. 

By the time Wednesday night’s class rolled around, I was mentally exhausted from the cancer treatment plan and my wrecked knee. But I no longer had any performance anxiety for my first night’s class. It was the best, most fluid class I’ve ever taught. At break, I found a package of peppermints someone had left at the podium. The red and white Starlight mints my Dad always kept on hand. 

And then the arc of my story changed. A week later, the knee was healed.