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In recent weeks I have heard this word frequently, either on the TV or online in news feed videos, most notably, in reference to Olympic athletes. The announcers and the athletes themselves widely used this term whenever referencing their athletic journey over the past almost two years of ‘stop and start’ that was the pandemic Olympic training plan.
I’d like to say that I can imagine how challenging that must have been, but, alas, despite my best grade school hopes of one day being an elite figure skater (or rhythm gymnast, or cross-country skier…) I do not know AT ALL what it would feel like to train your body to peak at a certain time and then have to wait…try it again…wait…and now? Of course these athletes needed to adjust, and quite frankly, isn’t it way cooler to say ‘pivot’ than ‘adjust’? However, pivot doesn’t really mean adjust or evolve, it sort of means to turn or revolve, denoting that there is a fixed point one is tied to. In fully and correctly using this newly cool word on my recent 8-hour flight back to the Motherland I had to find new and meaningful ways to pivot in order to keep my aching body functioning, not so I could strive for a gold medal, but simply, so that I could actually walk off the plane…
Eight hours on a plane is a long time, especially when you add in the time it takes for the pre-boarding requirements of all the ‘waiting’. All in, if I factor in the time it takes to drive to the airport, an 8-hour flight can turn into a 12-plus hour day of sitting. Before I have even parked my rear-end into my narrow airplane seat, I am already in need of a visit to a chiropractor! Eight hours on an airplane with aisles just barely wide enough to accommodate a side-ways saunter to avoid a simultaneous bumping of two rows of passengers, requires ample opportunities for a well-directed pivot.
At home, in the same travel time frame, I would have taken several quick walks to the bathroom, eaten a meal (and a snack), watched a movie, surfed the internet, solved a crossword puzzle, read a couple of chapters in a book and slept! Each sedentary activity would induce body movements that felt natural and necessary, keeping my back and neck from aching. On the airplane, I tried to do all these things, but since my body was tethered to a seemingly ever-restricting chair, I needed to constantly pivot in order to maintain some semblance of comfort.
Pivoting to the left offered me an opportunity to expand into the fuselage, but the window, although enjoyable to look out of, seemed inexplicably distanced from where my head could naturally rest and, more suited to someone (or something) with a much longer neck, such as a giraffe.
Pivoting to the right got me closer to the comforting arm (or shoulder) of my husband, but there was an immovable armrest in-between us which served as a hard reminder to pivot elsewhere lest I wanted a bruised rib cage. In the end, I gave in to my inability to effectively pivot and just tilted my head back…that’s when I discovered that the individual vent controls on the planes have been removed!
Adjust. Adjust.
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
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