Dived in a swimming pool at a party, after dark. Had only had a couple of drinks. Hit the bottom. Could not move. Would have drowned... except, there was another woman, dangling her legs in the water.. This woman had had a premonition just days before, that she would be present for just such an incident. She therefore acted with lightening speed, dove down to the bottom and brought this woman to the surface. Saved her life. This was Yinka... This is Yinka.
We happened to be visiting my sister in Edinburgh, who happened to share a house with Yinka. She received the phone call while we were there, that Yinka had had a terrible accident. She went down to see her in the hospital. We came back to California.
There follows for Yinka months in hospital and eventually they are ready to discharge her to her parents home. She has been told, nothing will ever change, you just need to learn how to live with your new, very limited range of faculties.
Months more pass. My husband Ryan shared one morning; I can't get Yinka out of my head. I feel like I have something to contribute to her situation. We knew we'd be back in England shortly. Now it had been a year since her accident. Ryan reached out. Yinka welcomed his intuition and invited him to come. They had never met. What happened next was spectacular.
Eventually Yinka would be able to articulate that the year following her accident, her body felt like "living in a coffin from the neck down." Ryan's involvement was a pivotal event. He came in with fresh eyes and with none of the institutional stasis of the British National Health Service. He realized after hanging out with Yinka for a few hours that she actually did have the capacity, * that there was no actual physical impediment to diaphragmatic breathing.*
He started to do resistance training with her and, one glorious day, she took her first deep gulp breath since the accident...Life force returning.
Bottom line was that this was Yinka's emergence into the new phase of life-worth-living. She asked us if we would be open to the idea of taking her from England to New Zealand to visit her cousin, who had sailed his boat there, met and married his lovely wife, and they had just had a baby girl, Yinka had thought she may never get to meet in their home. We said unequivocally yes, and the three of us designed the trip; from San Francisco, to Fiji, to break the journey to New Zealand, an extended stay in New Zealand, then on to old college friends in Australia, then on from there to India, and finally back to her parents home in England.
We rode bareback through the surf {and other wild delights}
Skiing down volcano and equally intrepid shit
This was just one wild crazy trip we have undertaken with Yinka. She was black belt Aikido before she broke her neck. That same spirit abides. I have rode bare back horse through the surf with her in Costa Rica (me being her backbone), slid down hot water slides there too, and Ryan has body-surfed with her in the ocean, as well as practically skied [ski] her in her wheelchair down the shale side of a volcano in New Zealand.
We have floated her in wild hot springs, brought her far from civilization by little motor boat to off-the-grid permaculture jungle center down near Panama.., to name but a few. At this point, we are aware, that she has more adventure under her belt than many an able-bodied biped.
In one fell swoop life changed forever, except, her spirit was the same... and, in the end, nothing could stop her having a blast
Looking forward now to Yinka coming back to us here in Santa Cruz, California in the late Spring, which is what precipitated this sweet trip down memory lane this evening.
Yinka Trip Pages
