Dance

Lee (New Zealand)

[reflection] 

I'm on student placement to become a physio at the moment. I'm learning to write patient notes, which are legal documents that have a very tight structure and purpose. In general, patient notes are not a natural place of creativity. However, I am enjoying finding small ways to bring in literary devices (alteration, metaphor, assonance, onomatopoeia, wry observation). The best are so subtle that they don't consciously ping or pop a growling. Also, there are doorways that I know open out to a new vista, and another world.

Last week, a therapy session spontaneously became a tango dance. Rarely we had the small gym to ourselves. It was empty with echoes - I wondered what to do next. Well, what happened next started because of our week on poetry. I was alive to my all-time favourite poem, "Rain" by Hone Tuwhare. Like Hone with rain, I noticed my pores begun to opening and closing to my patient, we knew each other by sound and smell. A bridge formed. She is non-verbal, but that belies how her sounds, eye movements, gestures and facial shifts formed rich communication to me. She was newly upright in her standing frame. Her tray, her arm, her hand received a soft steady drumroll tango beat. Warmly received? We moved in unison. First back and forth, then spinning around. I sang out a tune as we danced. I was surprised by the depth and sensuality (not being odd here - I mean of the senses) of the dance. It also held and spilled over with joy.

That day my notes read of "tango" - my supervisor said it didn't matter what we did - rather the minutes, degrees of incline and any "real observations" were best. I included all she told me, but still the notes said "tango" and that made me happy. And I have yet to write up this event for my research on how students transform into therapists. Where will this fit? How will it land? I am not sure, but I know I was "moved" in body and heart.