Train With Nina
Desiderato Merriwether
Science tells us that exercise is good for us, but building good habits is hard. Research shows that it takes anywhere from 2 to 8 months for a new behavior to stick. This is why it can feel so hard to meet our fitness goals.
I have been training with Nina for 4 amazing years. She completely transformed me to a strong healthy person (losing 15 kg in the process). She is tough and fun at the same time. I look forward to my 7pm training with her every other day.
I even drew trains when I was little. I made this train, which almost IS a rainbow train when I was around six years old. It was done by coloring the paper first with many colored crayons, then covering it all with black crayon and ultimately drawing with a pointy tool like a toothpick.
When all of the art was done I actually drove it from my home on Lummi Island (near the Canadian Border) to Seattle where it was scanned. This was in the middle of the worst part of the pandemic, and I barely left my home at that point, but I bravely wore a mask and started the art on its journey to really becoming a book. Chronicle Books took over from there- and I stood by, at the station, and helped fine tune this little book to be the best it could be.
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I began the journey in Venice with my producer mate Cammy and at the time we were there it was the Biennale art show with installations hidden throughout the town. The first place we stayed even had a large statue of two giant hands emerging out of the water and grabbing the outside of the building.
Paolo showed us to our cabin that was covered in polished mahogany and not soon after sitting down we were offered a glass of prosecco. This classic cabin was filled with wonderful goodies and one thoughtful feature is that they provide you with postcards to send to family and friends and there is post box onboard. You are given a wash bag with all of the essentials and there is a cute cupboard with a hidden away sink to freshen up. You must remember to have a shower on the morning that you leave your hotel in Venice as it is worth noting that there is no shower onboard. They have kept everything exactly as it was in the 1920s and have just restored the carriages but not made huge alterations.
We were lucky to get into the kitchen and meet the chefs to see how they prepare such fancy food on a moving vehicle. The head chef Igor ran through the care and thought that goes into each dish and these pretty looking plates again compliment the traditional surroundings.
When we finally made our way to the 9pm sitting, dinner was yet again a spectacular medley of sea bass with ratatouille, lamb cutlets and delicious red wine and we chowed this all down while we were coming up to the German border. After dinner we managed a last drink with some of our new friends and then off to our snug cabin that had been magically turned into bunk beds with chocolate on the pillows. Heavenly!
The next day I remember being woken up by a little sunlight coming in from my window as the Orient Express was chugging away towards Paris. We quickly jumped out of bed in the hope of catching some photos of the seafood being brought onto the train for the well known lobster brunch. Head Chef Igor showed us how he classically prepared the lobster with a creamy herby sauce and we picked up a coffee in the Gare Du Nord. When we arrived back in our cabin Paolo had brought us some fruit salad and tea to keep us going until the brunch at 11am.
As we were eating our Parisian lobby it was sad to think that this was our last meal on the Orient before having to get off at Calais. After saying our goodbyes to the wonderful staff and posting some postcards we headed onto a coach to travel through the Channel Tunnel. Even though we missed our little cabin when we arrived at the station in Folkestone we were greeted by a brass band serenading us while we boarded the charming British Pullman. I had definitely been spoilt enough but then a magnificent full English teatime arrived with sandwiches, cakes, champagne and tea.
This is another traditional train from Belmond but it has its own special feel and look with every carriage holding a history. One particular car that caught my eye was created for Nelson Mandela on his visit to the UK and they covered the chairs in a vibrant springbok design.
The train carried on all the way to Victoria and when it pulled in I felt wonderfully sleepy from the daytime champagne but also overwhelmed by such an experience. The whole journey lasts about a day and a half which sounds like it would be fleeting but in fact it is jam packed full of activity, breathtaking landscapes, incredible cuisine, unforgettable staff and stories that last a lifetime. While we were on the Venice-Simpson Orient Express I felt like everything slowed down a bit and I suppose this is because it really did feel like we went back in time, for this reason alone, this trip is priceless.
I trained as a counsellor ten years ago because I wanted to understand people better. I always knew I wanted to do a job where I could help people. But my work used to focus primarily on self-esteem issues and not disabilities even though I had a walking stick and a disability myself. I just didn't identify with being disabled and to be honest, didn't really have a clue about any disability stuff.
After this, I found the hashtag #babewithamobilityaid which kind of blew my mind because it was like, wow, all of these people look so cool and so hot, so surely, I can be that, too. Once I started talking about disability stuff, I didn't shut up and now I'm doing this.
Whatever somebody is bringing to me really. I do get lots of people who are newly disabled and navigating coming to terms with it all. Learning to deal with all those different feelings that arise led me to realise that there was a huge gap in counselling as a profession. From the training to the actual therapy available, disability wasn't covered, as I got more into my work, I started looking around at other therapists and most of them didn't even list whether they were accessible or not.
Something I talk to a lot of my clients about is rational anxiety and rational depression. Because if you are a disabled person or a person of any minority group, you know how this kind of discrimination and everything a disability comes with, affects you. Reacting to this process is not irrational and as a disabled person, visible or not, it is a process. For example, it is not irrational to feel anxious before walking into a room of non-disabled people because chances are somebody is going to stare or say something.
I think maybe a non-disabled counsellor or a counsellor who's got no clue about ableism or disability wouldn't pick that up. And often, they will try to use CBT to find your way out of it. But really, I think it's a big learning gap in a lot of therapists' training. I soon realised I had a lot of clients coming to me who've had really negative experiences with therapists, who've completely invalidated them because they just haven't understood what it's like to live with a disability or to live with a chronic illness.
I think perception of disability a lot of the time stems from what we are shown and what we're around. I think it needs to start within the media, it needs to start with stories that are being told. At the same time, I don't think it's enough just to plonk a disabled person in a story. We need disabled writers, we need disabled people behind the camera, behind the scenes and telling stories. Sadly, we are such a long way from that, the reality is there is very little representation at all.
During the pandemic, I definitely found everything became so heightened. There were literally so many of us screaming to non-disabled people about how many disabled people were dying and the reality of how disabled people were being treated etc. but people just didn't take any notice. Since the pandemic, I've definitely noticed a decline in people wanting to learn as well. Whilst we were in and out of lockdowns and the threat seemed real to able bodied people as well as disabled people, everybody was keen to learn more about the different groups of people and what their reality was. Now it doesn't affect abled bodied people anymore, people have lost interest.
The reaction I got when I was using my stick or crutches was very similar. A lot of the time people presume you've had an accident. So, I would say to anyone reading this, just be prepared for it. You will be asked what happened and some people don't mind talking about it. But a lot of the time we are caught off guard and answer on the spot because we think it is polite. But the thing is, you don't need to put your own comfort above a stranger's. If you have had an accident, it might be traumatic to talk about, and similarly, why should you be expected to talk about your medical history with people you don't know?
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