The Best Way to Kill Bernie

Puffing and staggering my uncertain way through 20 or so lengths at the Hydrotherapy Pool this morning, a couple of fellow travellers, thrashing around, caught my eye. ‘I can’t keep my balance,’ one of them said to me, winsomely I thought. I smiled at her, wolfishly I thought. ‘Then you should put more water in it’, I countered. Given our location and the 8am showing on the Pool clock, I estimated this piece of wry irony might elicit a smile – or possibly a chuckle. The singular absence of such a reaction, I took as either a sign of no sense of humour or a sign of a very well-developed sense of humour. My equanimity, at least, was firmly in place.

And that’s what I’ve been working on. Balance. For the last month or so, I’ve been turning up at the Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre in Kilbirnie, 3 or 4 times a week, and doing things in water that I can’t do on land. That sounds a bit Benny Hillish, I know – but what I mean is walking, running on the spot, star jumps and a range of other movements not possible for me to achieve out of the water.  I have a condition called peripheral neuropathy  and my legs contain only the fond memory of full mobility. I’m trying to help my body recover those memories and maybe, just maybe, be able to take a few steps without sticks, or a handrail, or a helping hand. To do, even if only for a few seconds, what I did, thoughtlessly, just 10 years ago. If I can do that, who knows where it may lead? A walk around an art exhibition and then back here to write a damning review perhaps? A walk over to the Lighthouse to see a movie and then back here to write a damning review perhaps? A walk through to Cuba Street for a meal in a posh restaurant and then back here to…no wait. Just a walk will do, thanks. That would be okay.

I’m getting lots of help and encouragement getting to, in and from the Pool. Pat, Josh and Hannah are all involved and one of them is always with me to ensure I don’t do a Mr Bean. There are many others at the Pool that succumb to its 34 degree pleasures, pursuing a sense, maybe a hope of well-being. It’s a community asset. A taonga. Certainly worth writing about.