6 December 2015
When Steve and I embarked on the house hunting 2 years ago in Wellington, we decided that the house needed to have some “Wellington-ness” about it. We needed, for example, a view of the harbour; or maybe a little bit of steepness on a narrow road; or native bush views with visits from Kaka – something that would say to us “you are in Wellington and nowhere else”. What we got was a lovely house perched on the side of a hill with walk-on access and a view over the suburb of Miramar. We parked on the street above and walked down 80 steps or parked on the street below and walked up 50. The house was built in 1967 and hadn’t really been touched since – you can imagine the wallpaper, the built in shelving, sliding doors to some rooms … Alongside an architect, we made plans for renovations. We got reticulated gas piped to the boundary in anticipation of a new hot water cylinder and a radiator heating system. We got approval from the Council to make changes. A week later, I did the unimaginable. I haven’t seen the inside of the house since – can’t get there in my chair.
The only possible way of getting access to the house would be to get right of way over the neighbours’ steep driveway, cross over the Council pedestrian accessway and make our own new driveway. To make a long story a wee bit shorter, the neighbours (for good reasons all their own) have said no to the right of way. No to access by car. No.
ACC would have funded any accident related modifications to the house in Seatoun – for example, they would have made a wet-area shower that I could roll into, they would have modified the kitchen for my use, they would have widened doorways so I could fit.
We now find ourselves in the market again. We will sell our house. We will buy something else. The ACC is still supporting us. They continue to pay our rent while we look, they will help us sell the house in Seatoun, they will modify the house we buy. Great. The biggest impact on that front now is time.
It took many months to find the house we wanted in Seatoun, and I expect that to happen again this time. And then the modifications. Petone will be where we live for a while. It’s nice and all, but we are not settled – there are things we won’t unpack, there are rooms we would like to change, but we won’t, we won’t make a garden. It will not be home.
It seems like I should be able to think about this as just a house we sell to move to a new house. Big whoop. But for me, this is not about selling, it’s about why we must sell.
I loved the plans we had for the house in Seatoun, but not being able to go back makes me think of the things I am unable to do and the dreams Steve and I had that we cannot now fulfill because of me.
Steve says it is not because of me. He tells me it is because of my condition, not because of who I am. I say to myself from time to time that I am not my wheelchair in the same way that many people must say “I am not my cancer” or “I am not my epilepsy”, but it is still hard for me to make that distinction. What has happened to me has had impacts both inside and out. There must be many other conditions that affect any one of us deeply but do not determine who we are. Disease? Loss? Grief? Children? Marriage? The outside is so radically different, but the inside persists. There are some impacts my condition has that I welcome. This new condition has allowed me to experience the generosity of strangers that I might not have seen before. I think about access and the capability of movement in ways I never considered. Those are good things to have awakened in me, but how do I let radical external changes in so they can help me reflect and change for the better without letting the external conditions demolish or determine who I am?
Dear Claudia, I had no idea you were having to sell. Every word you have written here packs a punch! Your question … the house and all those steps, the timing of it all The dreams, the thoughts. How could your idea of you not be thrown by all of this? What comes to mind is that it is and it isn’t you. And then … is it even either of these? Or instead …. it just is what it is. Then I thought of Pema Chodron – maybe you have heard of her? She wrote a book, among others, called When Things Fall Apart. ‘I am a river, not a rock, she says.’ here in this interview. Oprah is wearing enough makeup to sink a ship but moving along from that Pema cuts to the core of what happens when things change. http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Pema-Chodron
Love to you, Helen