Upon waking this morning and finding it was such a gorgeous day, my first desire was to take my beloved Darcy out for a long walk. I knew that things would be a little slower with the new motors, as they've changed from 10kph to 6kph, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. After all, it would be the first time I have been able to take him out in the last two months. So, once we were up and had shared photographs and stories of Florence with some friends who came round, Mama and I decided to do just that.
I couldn't wait to get into the sunshine, to grin at the blue sky whilst right beneath it instead of through a window pane, and I did. We went outside. I didn't even need my almost ubiquitous blanket, let alone a poncho. I was over the moon with, well, the sun.
Then, we turned the corner outside our flat...and my chair couldn't make it over one of the paving stones, so it cut out, and started beeping. Exactly like it did when it first broke down. This was concerning, but I was determined not to be foiled in my plan of getting over to the Heath, so I switched it off and on and it seemed to be fine. We continued. As soon as we got to the next (tiny) variation in terrain, however, it happened again. I switched it off and on, and we managed to get out of the gate.
This little process kept going as we moved down the pavement from our house to cross the road. The motor would cut, my joystick would beep, and I would repeat the on/off binary. We would keep moving. When we got to the curb which signals the entrance to the Heath, my chair stopped, but I refused to let it win. So much so that we made it down the first pathway. The trouble was, though, every time it cut it would jolt - and that was hugely uncomfortable. This meant I was getting steadily more upset, emotionally as well as physically (hence the showers in the title - for once my references to them are figurative and not literal, eh?).
Mama persuaded me to stop by a bench, which I did, and she suggested that we go out for lunch instead, as the walk didn't seem to be on the cards. That way, she reasoned, we could still be in the sun, but I wouldn't have to move much, and she could push me if necessary. (I love my Mama and her logic.) We did, and had a lovely lunch, deliberately ignoring the beeping that accompanied the brief journey there. We bumped into a good friend, and I had a milkshake with my food, revelling in my blanket-less warmth and the delicious (and novel) sensation of the sun on my shoulders. Nothing but joy was the order of the day, I had decided, and I would carry that through.
Of course, I do not want to suggest that I wasn't aware that there was an issue. I've already mentioned the rain on my face on the Heath - and, on the way home, the chair started pulling to one side as well as beeping, which basically means that the new motors aren't powerful enough to control the chair. More than that, now we're home, it's back to its old tricks of cutting out and beeping as soon as I try to drive at all. So we'll be back on the phone to the wheelchair clinic tomorrow to order new parts all over again.
That said, I'm hugely grateful to have had even just a little reminder of what independent driving feels like. I can infuse that exhilaration into my non-chair-based exploration (which is exciting enough in itself) and it'll keep me going as I traverse this extra (unexpected) bend in the road. I promised yesterday that I wouldn't become complacent, and now I don't have even the slightest reason to, so there's no worry of that.
Perhaps my chair is just being sneaky and telling me to get a move on. If so, challenge accepted. After two months of being walked over by bureaucracy, I think it's about time I returned the favour.
If you want me, I'll be listening to Nancy Sinatra.
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