With most new things my initial reaction follows a predictable pattern - panic followed by interest followed by unfiltered inquiry. As my private tour began it was no different:
Oh good lord! Yesterday it was the unilingual Mexicans who thought that the story based walking tour was the Harbour Hopper, now, a young couple eager for a tour in the heat.
A young couple on a walking tour - should be no problem eh?
But this was no ordinary couple. She was fairly pregnant. I remember Laura on hot days walking for two. There were trying times.
And him?
He used a wheel chair.
And Dartmouth?
Dartmouth is full of hills.
What did I do?
What you do dear reader?
I took the next logical step.
I looked them both in the eyes, smiled and said “Hi, I’m Jimmy from Dartmouth, welcome to Nova Scotia”.
Then?
Then I shook their hands.
They were warm, bright and bubbling with life - thrilled to be here on one of their last hurrahs before entering the joy, turd and vomit filled trenches of life with a newborn.
That handshake communicated a lot. Every doubt about ability, suitability and those damn hills that give us Nova Scotians such great calves went away quicker than a fart in a wind tunnel.
“Dude, those are pretty powerful mitts,” I marveled, ‘is that from the chair”?
“The chair and rowing. After my accident I took up sculling”.
He was clearly an athlete. Six foot six standing up. He was a young man with the kind of shoulders that could hold up the world and a natural smile that would disarm Jesse James.
He was charming, charismatic and clearly a born leader.
As we rolled onto the ferry, I told them stories about Dartmouth’s history. He shared some of his.
He was a top athlete on the verge of a bright future when the accident happened. This accident took him off the ice and onto the water. It changed his trajectory completely.
Despite this change in trajectory, it didn’t take away from the core of who he was.
He is an athlete. Even waiting on the dockside or in the lineup for the boat, his spacial intelligence and sensitivity was off the charts. He knew where he was. He knew instinctively where the lanes of motion were. He knew how to best position himself to see, listen, converse all while noticing his surroundings and impact on others.
He rolled through openings as though riding a camel through the eye of a needle.
As someone regularly enraged by those with below average spacial intelligence, I was almost slack jawed with marvel at how gracefully he rolled through life.
The only person I’d ever met who moved close to this well was a 14 year old PK Subban. I taught him for a few weeks as an arts educator at York Memorial the year before he was drafted by Montreal. “You move so well, have you ever considered circus school” - that was my helpful offer at the time.
In short though? ‘J’ is a genius when it comes to physical spatial intelligence.
Now, you well know, dear reader, that I’m a very nosy person. I peppered him with questions: What now? What’s next? How did you get here?
It wasn’t the Spanish Inquisition, largely due to lack of thumb screws.
“I helped out a friend with a sports camp. I had to translate what I knew how to do into words. I couldn’t just rely on moving. In doing so, I fell in love with teaching.”
Hell, that’s all he needed to do to be a teacher. His personal, practical, embodied knowledge had more depth and wisdom than any lesson planning workshop ever could.
“You’re a hero to me now. My wife’s been living with stage iv breast cancer for fifteen years. The trajectory of her plans was cut short by a chemo related brain injury. She was at the top of her field and she had to pivot too.
There was a lot of loss but a lot of good came from it.
And that loss?
That loss involved walking through darkness and living with a kind of pain that never fully heals.
“So you’re a hero to me because I know just how much guts it takes to keep going and stay positive”.
It’s easy to blame, to look back and to wallow. It’s even ok to indulge this every now and then.
But if you make it your identity, it’s a trap. Society loves a victim, the same way people love pets. They are safe, grateful and dependent, but most of all, easy to control.
Much more dangerous and difficult is finding resilience and love while having your world shattered.
Most of all though, this journey through loss and pain leads to profound wisdom.
As we parted, I shook his hand one last time. This time? I could feel the muscle, but he was much softer with his grip. Such a wise and sensitive man…
They say it can be disappointing to meet your hero’s.
Maybe.
It’s certainly thrilling to collide with new ones in unlikely places.
Keep rolling your fools!
Beautiful! I hope you get to meet so many new heroes in your adventures!