Breathe and Count Back From Ten: We Are Full of Life
“The lucid picture that this book paints of those with disabilities asks, who knows our limits better than ourselves?”
“Verónica’s story is raw and relatable. Her limitations are defined by other people since she was young, and the moments she stands up for her own capabilities will stick with me for a long time. In its authentic telling of a disabled body, Sylvester peels back the layers to reveal the life which exists in full bloom underneath.”
On one of those lists, I found Breathe and Count Back From Ten mentioned. Reading the description and thinking there were real mermaids featured in it, I bought the book.
(Small spoiler: there were no real mermaids.)
After inhaling all of the words on every page if they were air, and not finding any real mermaids within this world that manages to develop itself within only a few distinct locations, I went back. I went through the novel again, knowing that there would be no magical transformation from human to creature of the sea. For Verónica, though, the transformation is there, carried within every drop of water that runs through her neighborhood in Central Florida. She is able to forget the limits of her body don’t align with that of her spirit, and she can be free.
While my disability is not physical like Verónica’s, I found myself drawn to her. Our limitations are individual things and, like her, I felt free in the water. My body would tire less easily because gravity is weaker there, which means that I could do more physical activity than in the air. I would tire easier, and everything would hurt. If I had the lung capacity, then maybe I could have inserted myself as a mermaid into Verónica’s world. Her current state is constantly being valued and judged by those who are claiming to represent her best interests. After one mistake that occurred before the beginning of the narrative, Verónica is left receiving constant pressure not just for her physical state but also for what she does with it. Her own mind, and the opinions and limits that she knows, are relegated to being part of a “bad influence” that Verónica’s parents want to stamp out. Rather than a person, her Mamí and Papí intrinsically see their oldest daughter as tied to the reason they are in the United States. Verónica is the reason why, so she has to be kept away from anything that could damage her. More than a person, this teenager with hip dysplasia is a porcelain doll. She has to be kept safe, or else everything could collapse.
(Yes, this did remind me of that one osteoporosis commercial.)
Verónica isn't the only daughter of their family, having a younger sister named Dani. One of the primary subplots within Breathe and Count Back From Ten revolves around the sisters' relationship, with each harboring a lifelong jealousy towards the other that has its origins in Verónica’s hip dysplasia. In the book's opening chapters, Verónica comments that Dani prefers to cartwheel instead of walking, seeing the latter as "boring" and "ordinary". This display of agility, which comes so easily to Dani, is beyond Verónica's capabilities. Not only that, but as the younger sister, Dani is handed privileges that Verónica had to fight her conservative Peruvian parents for- such as shaving her legs past the shins.
While Verónica remains jealous of Dani's physical capabilities, Dani is equally jealous of her sister. Verónica's hip dysplasia has invariably taken up sections of the family's lives in chunks the size of calendar years, and with that has come all of the family's eyes being focused on her. If Verónica yearns to shun her parents' watchful gazes, Dani yearns for the spotlight to swing in her direction. It's not until Verónica performs at Mermaid Cove, the place which steadfastly held her dreams since childhood, that both sisters harmonize. For the first time in far too long, Verónica's self is seen as of equal value to her body.
Musical notes in a song which spans sixteen years, after all, contain a melody no matter their pitch.
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