Prelude
My left foot bowed in when I was born, its toes reaching for their
mates on the other side. A month later, when the foot hadn’t turned
back naturally, the pediatrician fitted me with a baby-sized leather
and metal brace that attached around my waist like a belt, holstered
my leg, and over the next six or seven months guided my foot into
its proper place. I wore the brace twenty-four hours a day, scraping
it across the floor as I learned to crawl. It wasn’t a burden. My
mother says I seemed to accept that it was just part of life.
That year, 1957, my parents lived in the converted army barracks
that constituted the married student housing at Indiana University.
Mom had finished her coursework for her master’s in music the
year she was pregnant with me, and after I was born, she began
practicing six hours a day for her violin recital the following spring.
During my waking hours—when my father was in the practice hall
with his cello and not pushing me around campus in my stroller
while humming pieces of music—my mother slipped me into a
bouncy seat hanging from the doorframe so she could practice.
There I jumped, she tells me, up and down and around in circles,
my metal sole clunking on the linoleum like a faulty metronome.
For most of my life, I have danced to a discordant beat as I
searched for the rhythm of my family and my place in it.