I’ve always walked fast. I was the youngest and shortest of four girls, and ever since I learned to walk, I had to walk fast to keep up in my family of giants.<\/p>\n
When Tom began to walk again after the stroke<\/a>, it was slow. One step at a time. He had to think about each one.<\/p>\n Stairs were precarious, especially when there were no handrails<\/a>. In the background was always the risk of falling<\/a>. At first, I walked ahead like an advance guard, getting rid of trip hazards, pointing out uneven stones.<\/p>\n Tom has been steady since his first steps<\/a>; as his therapists noted early on, he has a large cone of stability. But he didn’t like to have me watch his gait, or hover too closely, because it could throw off his concentration.<\/p>\n So as we walked together in public, there evolved a kind of dance.<\/p>\n I could walk ahead of him, but not too far ahead, because then we weren’t together. I wanted to be able to talk to him. And I couldn’t appear to be leading him like a dog.<\/p>\n I could walk beside him, but not too close, because then I’d be monitoring him, as though to grab him if he faltered. That wasn’t necessary and it bugged him.<\/p>\n I couldn’t circle him like a shepherding dog. That would be annoying and distracting for Tom, not to mention looking very odd to anyone watching us.<\/p>\n So I learned to hover without seeming to hover.<\/p>\n I walk in a casual, slow way, not my normal speedy, assertive way. I talk to Tom without watching him directly, though my peripheral vision is sharp.<\/p>\n I go ahead a little ways if the space is narrow, but I only glance back – I don’t stop and watch him catch up. If we’re crossing a roadway, I linger slightly ahead of him in the intersection, stopping cars with my glare.<\/p>\n Although his gait continues to improve, over a distance it would be hard not to get ahead of him. I have found ways to wait for him without appearing to wait. I look around at the buildings, stop to check out a nice leaf on a branch, pretend to read a poster, doooo doo doo-doo.<\/i><\/p>\n It’s actually a fine way to practice mindfulness. I notice more while perfecting this hover craft.<\/p>\n When we took our walk on Christmas Day<\/a>, which was about a mile and a half, Tom thought I’d be bored with his pace. I wasn’t. I saw more, took more photos, than I would if I’d been walking alone.<\/p>\n Tonight we went out to dinner. There were steps. I danced on them a bit, ran to check out the seating through the windows, and picked our table before we opened the restaurant door.<\/p>\n On the way out, Tom carried the doggie bag. I looked at storefronts and checked out cars in the parking lot. When we got to the steps, I offered to take the bag. We were talking about how tasty the food was. That was all that really mattered.<\/p>\n <\/span>Today’s penny is a 2012, 50 years after the first hovercraft passenger service<\/a> began between the English seaside resort of Wallasey and South Wales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve always walked fast. I was the youngest and shortest of four girls, and ever since I learned to walk, I had to walk fast to keep up in my family of giants. When Tom began to walk again after the stroke, it was slow. One step at a time. He had to think about … read more Hover craft<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[52,307,484,20,636],"class_list":["post-10209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-improvisation","tag-52","tag-safety","tag-stroke","tag-tom","tag-walking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10209"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10221,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10209\/revisions\/10221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}