JUST KEEP MOVING - In Loving Memory of Ev and Nev Cowan
My Grandpa died of Parkinson’s disease. He was an extremely intelligent man who had led a very physical life. In the early days of telecommunications, Pop worked laying telephone cables for Australian phone company Telstra. He was also a fisherman and carried his heavy wooden dinghy on his back down to the water on a daily basis when I was a kid. Actively involved in local politics, Pop never shied away from a heated, intellectual political discussion and was a font of information on just about anything.
My Grandma died of dementia. She was an extremely intelligent woman who led a very physical life. While pop was laying telephone cables, Ma was in the kitchen, standing on her feet for hours a day, making incredible feasts as a caterer for big events. Always by Pop’s side, she would accompany him on fishing trips and the two of them would take us camping and swimming and sailing and hiking. Actively involved in local politics, Ma never shied away from a heated, intellectual discussion and was a font of information on just about everything.
I still remember the day when I noticed Pop had Parkinson’s Disease. He was driving me to swimming training and I noticed his hand shaking as he changed the gears on the little yellow Sigma, my childhood car (license plate SXY-424 - I have an uncanny knack of remembering license plate numbers). I think I may have been too young at the time to know what was wrong, but I knew it wasn’t good. Pop didn’t deteriorate quickly. He continued his active lifestyle for many years after that but gradually each year the shaking became worse and worse. I wasn’t privy to much of his healthcare treatment, but I do know that as the condition got worse, Pop stopped being as mobile and would spend endless amounts of time just sitting in his rocking chair, and it didn’t take long for his body to seize up.
Eventually Pop ended up in a nursing home where he was put in a hospital bed and left lying on his back for the rest of his life, simply staring at a ticking clock, literally watching his life tick away. It didn’t seem like the carers in the home ever really encouraged him to get out of bed and whenever I went to visit, they always looked way too busy to tend to him very much. It broke my heart to see him lying there. It looked like his body was totally frozen, like rigor mortis. He had difficulty speaking so people would speak over him, or for him, or yell at him, but if you had patience and took the time to really listen, he could talk. I remember the last time I ever saw him, I sat by his side and just held his hand for hours. When I went to leave he squeezed my hand so hard and wouldn’t let go. It was as if he knew he’d never see me again - and he was right. I so wish I had just taken him for a walk.
When my Grandmother hit her seventies she was determined to lose weight. At that ripe old age she gave up the ice cream and the wonderful but decadent food she’d made as a caterer and quit sugar altogether. A tiny bit agoraphobic, she would do laps up and down the back yard and when the phobia became worse, up and down the passageway of my childhood home. She lost a ton of weight and was always reading a newspaper, or listening to the radio or doing a crossword puzzle. She and I would sit for hours playing crib or euchre or other card games she’d inherited from her Grandmother. She was as bright as a tack, until Pop went to the nursing home, at which time she’d spend endless amounts of time just sitting in her rocking chair and it didn’t take long until her mind seized up and she was by Pop’s side in the same nursing home.
And there she sat, and there he lay, watching a ticking clock tick their life away. Nobody encouraged them to move, they probably didn’t feel the urge to move, and while Pop was sharp as a tack his body froze, while Ma’s body remained agile, her brain diffused. And they sat and they sat and they watched the clock and their conditions deteriorated until their last breath.
I have always been a mover. I came from a background of competitive swimming and when I became an actor, I was always drawn to physical training modalities. When I stopped swimming I became lethargic and depressed, until I found another passion - acting - and a reason to move. I know if I don’t move, my body will seize up and my mind goes a little crazy. Just like Ma and Pop.
I’ve recently become obsessed with neurology, particularly in relation to movement and how it affects our brain, mainly because of what happened to my grandparents and the fear of succumbing to the same fate. A couple of years ago I read The Brain’s Way of Healing: by Norman Doige, which told the story of a man called John Pepper who literally walked off his Parkinson’s disease. Well not really, he uses walking to stave off the physical effects. It was no mean feat and required a great deal of concentration and physical awareness, but he discovered that if he just walked 10 minutes a day it kept the Parkinson’s at bay. But he knows if he stops, the effects will come back, so he uses this as motivation to just keep walking. (seriously, it wasn’t that simple but there’s not enough time to go into great detail. I recommend you read the book - it’s an eye opener.)
I am now reading Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at any Age: by Sanjay Gupta, which outlines things you can do in order to keep your brain healthy and stave off dementia. It’s not a sure fire preventative measure, I’m sure there’s not much we can do about genetics, but one of the most important things that we all need to keep doing is moving. It’s the number one thing that is going to keep our brains healthy and sharp as a tack. Move your body, walk, run, skip, jump, swim, stand up and sit down again - anything. It will make you feel more energized right now and in 30 years time, maybe you won’t be lying in bed watching your life tick away.
In my next blog, I want to delve into the world of Rudolph Laban and his philosophy that how we move affects our inner psychology and how our inner psychology affects the way we move, but I wanted to use this space to introduce why I’m obsessed with movement. I’m also grappling with trying to understand why this pandemic, which has forced me inside this winter, and my newly acquired office job, which requires endless hours of sitting on one’s butt, are both making me feel both physically stiff and lethargic and a little crazy and anxious at the same time. An Alexander teacher once told me “Tina needs to move. It’s who you are, it feeds your soul. And remember, life is not a to-do-list. Don’t let it pass you by whilst you’re concentrating on things that don’t feed your soul.” I need to move. I know it. It’s part of my DNA. Right now, inside, at this desk, I feel like a trapped bird in a cage, like my grandpa on that bed, like my Grandma in that chair, and it’s only a matter of time before this bird goes a bit crazy and breaks down the cage door. I don’t want to end up like Ma and Pop. Maybe it’s inevitable but I’m going to try my darndest not to let that be my fate. With consciousness we can control that part of us which makes us just want to sit. Remember to keep moving everyone. It will make you feel better. It will brighten your mood and it will keep your brain healthy.
Take care and stay sane in these crazy times!
Suggested Reading: The Brain’s Way of Healing: by Norman Doige, Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at any Age: by Sanjay Gupta, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey: by Jill Bolte Taylor.