Keep going!

Gaynor Young — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 03:27:42 +0000

Gym is a different place to different people. A place of torture; a place of fun; a place of embarrassment; a place to ‘strut your stuff’!
I have found that it is a great place to keep this squonk body of mine moving. With brain damage it is more difficult to do things. I am unable to move my body as I used to. Because of my spastic right hand side, I don’t walk in the correct manner. I walk with a limp. But, hey, what a beautiful limpy walk I perform! Seriously though, I put unnecessary pressure on my body in all the wrong places. As a result I often suffer from tremendous backache. I have found that exercise is the best remedy for me. So, off to gym I go!
I don’t do the aerobics or Zumba dance classes. I would be a complete disaster causing untold chaos! I head for the machines. When I began gym I was unsure of which machines to use or for how long. Now I have it down to a fine art. Thirty repetitions on each machine! I laugh at myself returning recently from the Christmas holiday. Before the break, I happily skimmed through my thirty repetitions. Following it, I was ready to pack it in after only fifteen! It’s amazing how quickly you get out of shape.
The one machine I hate with a total passion is the bicycle. I found it so damn boring until my friend told me to stop cruising along with the control on one. I must push it up to at least two for four minutes and then three for the last minute. During that five minute bicycle ride, I now positively die! I definitely do not like the bicycle.
Dad used to come with me to gym. I can see him now in his “plimsolls” and grey tracksuit pants that were too short. I don’t think dad realised they were too short. They ended mid calf and his grey socks made up the shortfall. I smile remembering my father in gym. My gym is very relaxed and laid back. I barely work up a sweat. But dad was ten times worse! I would see him fiddling around on a few machines but he would spend the majority of his time watching all the nubile young women sweating through their aerobics class! Or sitting on a bicycle contentedly watching the cricket on the TV in front of him. Note I use the word ‘sitting’. Perish the thought of him actually riding the bike!
Smile. I miss dad.
I marvel at the ‘gorgeous’ people working out in the free weight area. Men AND women picking up the most astounding weights. This morning two young men were working together. Both had broad chests filled with M-U-S-C-L-E and arms like you wouldn’t believe! The one exhaled sharply, placed his hand around the dumbbell, shut his eyes, exhaled a little more and then with supreme effort he clasped it to his chest. His friend gave a running commentary of: “That’s it, come on now. Up…up…” Then the body builder pressed his dumbbell up above his head. He then returned the weight quickly to his chest once more and then let it fall onto the floor with a thump. This was accompanied by a great whoosh of air from himself and a “Good one, good one,” from his gym buddy.
Over the years I have come to know the various gym regulars. There is Hennie who has an amputated leg. I see him working on the rowing machines, complete with his prosthesis. There is Rina, a seventy year old lady who puts me to shame with the workouts she performs each day. There is the man with the wonderful bright sports shoes. I don’t know his name but one can’t forget his shoes or his smile! There is Trish, who always arrives at gym with her gorgeous hair pushed back behind a headband, looking neat and trim. She leaves a completely different person. Her hair is a disheveled wreck and her t-shirt is rumpled and wet with sweat. Her freckled face has perspiration dripping into her eyes and is plastered with a big smile. She has had a good workout!
One of the good things about having cochlear implants is that I am unable to weigh myself on the electronic scales in the ladies change room. Apparently electronics and my CI don’t go well together. I secretly smile watching the various women climb on and off the scales. Happy? Disappointed? Resigned? In actual fact, it is a liberating thing being able to walk past those scales without a thought!
You might have started this year determined to go to gym and get yourself in shape. By now your initial zest and zeal might have worn off. Perhaps you are tempted to pack it in. You mustn’t! I have learnt that gym is about far more than “keeping yourself in shape”. What strikes me about gym is that it doesn’t matter what size, shape and age you are. These actually don’t play a leading role in the general scheme of things. Yes, one strive’s to improve one’s body but that isn’t the be all and end all. Gym is a place for laughter and friendship. It is a place for competition and encouragement amongst friends. It is a place of smiles. I have been going to gym now for eight years. I…belong.
The best thing for me about gym is the feeling I have on leaving: okay, this body of mine has woken up. Now, let’s see what the day holds! Mmmmmm, maybe a banana milkshake!

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Pay it Forward!

Gaynor Young — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 03:25:32 +0000

I have this friend, Ynor. Yeah, Ynor and Gaynor. Great pair we make, huh! When Dad died, realising that I no longer had a lift to gym, Ynor offered to come three kilometres out of her way and fetch me for my early morning ritual at the Virgin Gym! During the past four years we have got to know and like each other – a lot!
I go to gym to keep the various parts of my body moving. It’s like making sure a machine is well oiled and in reasonable condition! Ynor goes to gym to work her body flat out. And I mean – flat out! She demonstrates the sheer abandon and rigorous self discipline with which a person can attack the machines and their body. Abandon and self discipline are actually opposites, aren’t they? Ynor combines them beautifully! I always laugh at the way we leave gym. I look much the same leaving as I was on entering Virgin. My face might have a slight rosy glow to it. Ynor enters the gym looking good. She leaves it, drenched in sweat, her hair tousled with every muscle alive and zinging. She has worked!
One of Ynor ‘s marvellous attributes is that she loves the same TV programs I do. I laugh at how many earnest discussions we have had about the ins and out of The Good Wife As a result of my deafness I miss a lot of what is said on television. After an episode of The Good Wife has finished, Mum waits for her telephone to ring. It always does. I quiz her about who said what.
“Oh, I see. So he said: ‘Yes, I’ll think about it,’ and then went on to do the exact opposite. What a shyster! Mums, I just love this program.”
Ynor has DSTV and a PVR. She never watched The Good Wife at the same time as I did. She was too busy catching up on other TV programs that were stored on her recorder. I loved it when she had finally watched The Good Wife. We then thoroughly analysed and dissected the program between us.
“Why don’t you get DSTV, Gaynor? You would love it,” she asked.
I laughed and rubbing my fingers and thumb together said: “Da money! Da money!” Then more seriously: “I just can’t afford it, Yns. M-Net is bad enough. I definitely can’t afford DSTV. It’s just goes outside my budget”
Then I heard the dreadful news that her husband, Alan’s work required him in Cape Town. They are moving mid-January. I wanted to put my head back and howl! I have few friends in George and Ynor was a special one. Yes, I know that I will keep in contact with her. I go down to Cape Town fairly regularly. But when a person moves away, one experiences loss. I hate that empty, gut wrenching feeling that twines itself around your heart.
Last week Ynor phoned. “Gaynor, tomorrow morning, Sandro, the TV man is coming around to your place.”
“Yes, he is,” I answered, “My MNET decoder has broken and…hey, how did you know that my decoder is broken?”
“Tomorrow Sandro is coming around,” she repeated, “to install DSTV for you.”
“What?” I croaked.
“Alan and I want you to be able to enjoy DSTV. We will pay for it for as long as you want it.”
I was unable to say another word. My eyes had instantly filled and all I could manage to articulate were these pathetic little squeaks.
Sandro duly came round and DSTV was installed and my world has changed completely! Let me explain. My Cochlea Implants have given me so much sound back but it is in the films on television and the various episodes that I come unstuck. The talking is fast and with the bodies moving, the American accents and all the action one misses a vast amount. I now have DSTV. That gives me countless films, episodes and documentaries to watch. And the most mind blowing thing of all is that most of the films and episodes are subtitled!
Ynor and Alan gave for no reason. It wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. They saw a need and gave. They bestowed on me such incredible largesse. I cannot ever begin to pay them back. But what I can do is “Pay It Forward“! Do you remember the film of that name with Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey? A good thing is done for someone and they in turn have to do something good to someone else.
And so, I am on the lookout for someone that I can do something for. I hope that somehow I can be as life changing as Ynor has been in my life……..

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Keep going!

Pay it Forward!