Fifteen years since her spinal cord got severed, and she's anything but paralyzed, even as she remains wheelchair-bound between crazy, mad, and delightful escapades.
Based in England and inspired by London Paralympics Games Yinka came home and into her weekly spa routine (City of Bath) with a new vision; that she might actually be able to do more than just float. With phenomenal single-minded focus she successfully accomplished a swim-stroke that allows her to progress across the pool in a rolling motion. Can you imagine? Getting yourself from A to B under your own steam when so much of life is necessarily on external-assist. That was a banner day and with each such triumph horizons broaden to heretofore unimagined vistas.
Not that floating isn't awesome in its own time and place;
We find our way to “Paradise Springs” where hot water pours into the lake in the natural setting of ferns, rocks and slime. A rare and beautiful experience in nature." New Zealand, Yinka blog
Yes, we have ridden bareback through the surf in Costa Rica me her backbone.., slid in tandem down a hot water slide there too. And Yinka bodysurfed in that ocean or, I guess technically you could say, Ryan was her 'board'!
"Let's do it!", is her refrain when we say, "Shall we??!!" (double-dare you!!)
We've been to Burning Man, test-driven every kind of contraption that Yinka could ride on the Playa. We've been to Navajo Country in a 25 year old biodiesel RV; broke down out there actually, and camped rough for 3 days in the mechanics' dusty lot in the middle of nowhere while they did their best to get us back on the road in record time.
In Santa Cruz one time, Yinka arrived into our Live Oak Grange house rental scene whereupon Takashi broke out a never before seen custom-built wheelchair we test-drove to Sunny Cove and other favorite Live Oak haunts.
Once we flew a small plane from Watsonville, south (breathtaking aerial view of Big Sur coastline), all the way down to Joshua Tree, facilitated by one of her caregivers being an ex-British army helicopter/small plane pilot (air-lifted troops out of Bosnia back in the day). We all piled into the desert house of her old and dear friend from Edinburgh uni days.
Another time, she landed in Santa Cruz to join the WomenRise Summer sojourn to Wounded Knee / Pine Ridge Lakota Indian Reservation [SD], for the cob house building project we had undertaken See John Hopkins University: Midnight Strong Hearts / WomenRise project
Yinka directed and produced a short movie of her experience on the reservation; Happy New Era: Building With Lakota. More often than not, in that instance, she was directing the movie lying flat on her back in the middle of the building site day after scorching day, swift-lifted into the car in a heartbeat to protect from the ferocious, thankfully brief, hailstorms that would swoop in periodically, pummeling us all into submission till they passed.
So here we are, gearing up for our next little encounter with a fireball!
And now you can see with me, with us, how perfectly she and we would DIG a DUET bicycle wheelchair tandem for our next homespun adventure!!!!
