Most of my childhood summers were spent at my Nana and Grampa’s cottage near Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts. Built in the early 1950s shortly after Grampa came home from the war, it was their simple, summer escape. The cottage was an uninsulated, cedar-shingled place for my grandmother to sunbathe and drink Fresca and my grandfather to sail his boat, Sabrina.
In our family, the cottage was never called “the cottage.” It was always called “The House in the Woods with the Red Front Door.”
Not only was the front door red, but the screen door, too. In all weathers, the heavy wooden red door was propped open with a big rock from the beach. The red screen door was the door we actually used. Much more screen than door, it was attached to the jamb with loose-ish hinges and a big spring.
That screen door was the flow of the house. Grownups and children and dogs were in and out all day. Even when it was closed, it was where the inside spilled out and the outside spilled in. Smells of pine trees and salt air, coffee and ripe peaches, sounds of sea gulls and blue jays, laughter and barking, rays of sun, sprinkles of sand, pinecones and puddles of rain flowed in and out.
Knees and elbows are much like that old, red screen door.
Like hinges of a door, your knees function best when they move in a single plane. Ideally, the knee and ankle joints align, and stack over each other, both facing the same direction. When the foot is directed forward, the knee should also point forward. Foot to the side? Knee to the side.
When the knees function healthfully, you experience a sense of stability, not tension or wobbling, pulling, twisting or dragging. The direction of your feet dramatically affects the function of your knees and legs. If ball of the great toe and the outside edge of the foot isn’t firmly grounded or you collapse on the arch, your knee and pelvic basin rotate, stressing both knee and hip joints. That’s what I did when I was a kid and I hung on the door, straining the hinges and twisting the door out of its easy, swinging plane.
Elbows are even more like the House in the Woods with the Red Front Door screen door. The door was a little loose on its hinges and similarly two forearm bones actually cross over each other. This space and movement allows for a wider range of motion through the arm but even so, that joint ONLY GOES IN ONE PLANE. You cannot open the door the other way without breaking it.
Mechanically, muscles, ligaments, tendons, connective tissue and bones weave together to support the structures of both knee and elbow. Neither joint is designed to support extreme weight but rather to transfer energy from one set of bones to another. Sturdy, strong legs require flexible, pliable knees to maintain leg strength. Strong, supple arms require spring-loaded elbows to allow for a wide variety of movement. The screen door needs to be attached to the jamb with long, strong screws.
If you lock your knees, it compresses the cartilage and cuts off the energy flow that supports your legs. When you lock your knees, or press them back, you use the bones rather than the muscles for support. You stand on your bones, weakening the legs. Lack of use leads to strength loss as a direct result of the muscle and energy atrophy.
If you never fully extend your arms, it shortens the muscles, ligaments and tendons which limits the arm’s range of motion. Keeping your arms in is like only opening the door part way: less can move through and the hinges will start to tighten. If you regularly hyper-extend your elbows (like me), you are similarly weakening the joint and limiting your arm’s stability and power, like pushing the door the the direction it isn’t built to go.
Just like the old red screen door, let the elbows and knees open and close throughout the day. Stay in awareness of the flow that happens in all four joints and see how you tend to use them. Intentionally allow these sister joints to move energy from you to the world and back again.
Allow the flow to happen in and out of your own House in the Woods with the Red Front Door.
My sister at another screen door watching the rain (circa 1974).
Just like the old red screen door, let the elbows and knees open and close throughout the day. Stay in awareness of the flow that happens in all four joints and see what your tendencies are in the way you use them. Intentionally allow these sister joints to move energy from you to the world and back again.
Allow the flow to happen in and out of your own House in the Woods with the Red Front Door.