Getting up from loneliness and isolation through finding community

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Amanda McGowan with her silver medal at 2017 US Figure Skating Adult Nationals

I continue my monthly blog series based on US Figure Skating’s popular “Get Up” campaign which shares the message that life, like the ice, is hard, and we can certainly fall on it. But the more times we get up and persevere, the stronger we become.

One thing many people often struggle with is loneliness and isolation. One excellent antidote to loneliness is finding a community of positive and supportive people who share a common interest, and that common interest can be figure skating!

Here is a wonderful story of one of the newer members of the US Adult Figure Skating Community, Amanda McGowan. I met Amanda at the 2017 US Adult Figure Skating Nationals in Wake Forest, NC and she shared her story with me:

“I think I would have retired from skating and just coached if i’d never been to Nationals 2 years ago. Here is my journey ….

“I’m a small town girl from West Virginia, and my entire state has only 2 ice rinks, with mine being the only one open year round. And there were as few as 5 adult skaters counting myself at my rink and that number has actually grown since 2 years ago. I started skating at 18, and lessons at 20.

“The first rink I was at was an hour away from my hometown and I knew no one but I wanted to skate so I went, found my coach, and made friends. When that rink shut down they had just built a rink in my hometown so we all went there. The adults who skated at my rink mostly did shows. But I wanted to go to Adult Nationals from the first time I ever heard of it.

“Professionally and socially outside of the rink, people didn’t know what to think of me because I was the only adult figure skater they knew. But I had a dream and a goal though, so I kept going. When I went to my first Sectionals I knew one other lady from the rink who was from NC who had talked me into all this. That was it. I hadn’t competed in about 10 years and being nervous was an understatement. But winning that first medal ignited something in me.

Amanda with her long time coach and “skating Mom” Heidi Sowards

“At my First Nationals I won a bronze medal and my dream came true, but even more importantly I started meeting people and making friends. I discovered a whole adult community of people just like me. Working adults who were also figure skaters! It’s like being at summer camp but we all have credit cards and access to the fanciest stuff we can find. Everyone is cool here, everyone is accepted. Now after my 3rd Nationals, and some other adult competitions I have a whole slew of friends and I keep finding more.

“Some of the people I’ve met have become my best friends and a skating family of sorts. We live all over the country and only see each other a couple times of year. But if I have a bad day or need a friend they are always a phone call or text message away.

“Skating is how I feel the world. Skating is how I celebrate the good stuff, and deal with the bad stuff. As long as there’s skating it will always be ok.

“As a coach I want to pass that on to my students: enjoy the experience. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the friends you make. This year at nationals when I hit my final pose I had tears in my eyes. One of my friends later told me “you beat yourself. You beat that girl I first met in 2015.” Maybe I did. I have a US Silver Medal to make me smile, but I also have some of the best friends in this world to encourage me and make me excited for next year. That’s worth more than any medal, or amount you pay to participate in all this.”

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Hopefully if you are lonely and isolated, you can find a community to engage with and enjoy, just as Amanda has done with adult figure skating. And perhaps for you too, skating may be just the way to go!

Link to my skating blog and videos page which contains links to my first five “get up” blogs which include getting up from physical issues, career challenges and contemplating or attempting suicide.

A great diversity experience – Theater Breaking Through Barriers

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Two of the actors featured in “The Artificial Jungle,” David Harrell and Anita Hollander

NOTE: The play featured in this blog runs through July 1st at the Clurman Theatre, 410 West 42nd Street, New York City. Link to Theater Breaking Through Barriers for information and tickets.

In early June, my mother and I took a quick weekend trip to New York City so she could have a reunion with her best friend from college from the early 1950s. Since that was planned for Sunday, I arranged for us to see an off-Broadway play on Saturday afternoon, Charles Ludlam’s “The Artificial Jungle” in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

The play was a combination comedy and thriller featuring only five characters. Nerdy Chester, his attractive over-sexed wife Roxanne and his doting mother all live together and run a pet shop in New York City selling exotic animals. They are looking for some additional help with the store and hire sexy mysterious Zach. Zach and Roxanne have an affair and then plot to kill off Chester by throwing him into the piranha tank. The 5th character is Chester’s best friend Frankie, a good hearted but somewhat incompetent policeman. Do read this fascinating synopsis and review from the NY Times from when the play first ran in 1986.

Anthony Michael Lopez (Zach) and Alyssa H. Chase (Roxanne) plotting Chester’s demise in “The Artificial Jungle”. Credit: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

What is special about this current production? Theater Breaking Through Barriers features actors with a wide range of disabilities. David Harrell (link), who plays leading man Chester, is an actor, speaker and disability advocate with one hand. And Anita Hollander (link), who plays Chester’s mother is a long time actress, singer, lyricist, producer and teacher who lost a leg due to cancer. Both actor and actress were marvelous in their respectful roles. In addition Anthony Michael Lopez (link), who portrays Zach was born with a leg defect, and other articles about the cast say that one of the five actors is also legally blind, though all my google searching could not help me identify who.

As a diversity consultant (deep expertise in LGBT, but half my clients engage me for all areas of diversity and inclusion,) I do take away two lessons from this production:

First, that differently-abled people are fully capable of handling the same tasks and taking on the same responsibilities as people without disabilities, and may perform just as well or better. This is a very important message for the business world where often unconscious bias could lead us to prejudge people with disabilities as less capable. During the play, the acting, directing and story were so good, the disabilities of the cast were non-apparent.

Second, the world of entertainment should use more “imperfect” people in roles. So often shows, movies and plays have the most beautiful flawless people on stage. Naturally in entertainment, we like to get lost in the fantasy of gorgeous people in a glamorous story, but it is also nice to experience entertainment that much more parallels real life.

I do thank Theater Breaking Through Barriers and the Clurman Theatre helping my mother and me have a great weekend in New York, and I am pleased to also make a charitable contribution to TBTB through my business. And if you are in or going to New York, do go see “The Artificial Jungle!” Link for info and tickets. And do pay close attention to the piranhas in the tank.