Episode 1: Spine

Available for 25 days

Darcey Steinke’s engrossing new book explores the subject of pain – what science tells us and what artists and thinkers have made of it. For Steinke, it all started when she damaged her back. ‘I wake in the dark, crawling backward out of bed, left foot on the floor, then numb right foot. I can’t bend over to put on my jeans. If I sit or lie down for even a few moments, the pain when I get back up is excruciating. How did I get here? Pain occurs in the bones, muscles, and tissue but also in the brain. Pain affects emotion, cognition, memory, and decision-making. It is a corporal experience, but also a spiritual one that points to the body’s possible calamities, its mysteries, and most of all, its darkness.’ In five episodes, Darcey Steinke journeys towards healing, and searches for an understanding of other people’s pain. In this first episode, she reflects wryly on the bizarre accident which damaged her spine – she just moved in bed, and her back gave way. ‘I felt a muffled snap, like a wet branch breaking. Odd that I’d injure my back not by falling, but in bed, a place I associate more with pleasure than with pain…’ She explores the experience of others in pain, like the painter Frida Kahlo. A bus crash when she was 18 bounced Kahlo’s body forward and a handrail pierced her abdomen. Her spinal column was cracked in three places and she shattered her collarbone and three ribs. Her right leg was fractured and her pelvis was broken. But despite her pain, Kahlo continued to paint. Rather than retreat from it, she confronted her pain directly. Although she wanted to be healed, her idea of what that might mean was unique - pain not cured, but seen, shared, known. The reader is award-winning actor Elizabeth McGovern, who played the Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey Adapted and produced by Elizabeth Burke Executive producer: Sara Davies Sound design: Jon Calver A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4