‘Imagine you’re holding a balloon.’ The thin, sinewy instructor held her arms over each other, which made the hand of her lower arm be positioned below the elbow of her upper arm. ‘Or the sun.’ She moved her hands so they were at the same height, some distance between them. Her hands seemed to be holding an invisible ball as she did so. Then, she moved her arms back to the original position, but this time, her arms had switched places. It was a very simple movement. Yet, it took me some time before I had it down. I had the feeling I was in secondary school again, where our gym teacher was continuously trying to teach us silly dance moves. I was invariably the last one to get the hang of them.
‘Especially make sure that the balloon stays the same size during the entire exercise. Yes, Veerle. You’re doing great.’ She looked in my direction, seemed to want to say something, but changed her mind.
We repeated the movements a couple more times. She then moved her hands down and rocked her imaginary balloon from the left to the right. ‘Now we’re going to rock the sun to sleep, so the night can start.’
I had never felt the urge before to rock the sun to sleep, but once I had figured out the movement, I did find pleasure in it. It felt as though it loosened something up in my shoulders. Els flashed me the occasional cynical glance and she rolled her eyes when the teacher digressed and began discussing our chi and the importance of it, but she obediently did all the exercises with us and seemed to relax gradually. Veerle was enjoying all of it visibly, in her pink tank top and her harem pants.
‘For our next exercise, we let our hands wave as though they were clouds,’ the teacher said with an exaggerated smile. It made me think of my previous job in the call center, where we had to talk with a ‘smile in our voice’. The tai chi instructor would have been hired in no time. The exercise was so easy that even I immediately had the hang of it. Suddenly, I felt a hand against my elbow. The small woman to my side looked at me, her face bright red. ‘Sorry!’
‘That’s all right,’ I laughed.
She stopped doing her exercise and smoothed her blue T-shirt. ‘I’m just such a complete klutz.’
‘Join the club. Is this your first time as well?’
‘No.’ She laughed out loud. It was a contagious laugh. I stopped laughing when the teacher came standing in front of me, still with that same manic smile on her face. ‘Ladies, I find it perfectly fine that you’re talking and laughing, but try to keep moving in the meantime.’ She looked straight at me for a moment. ‘And to keep up the tempo.’
‘Sorry!’ my neighbor and I said in unison. Els nudged Veerle, who was grinning at me. The teacher remained in front of me, so I tried my utmost to keep up with the others. It was against my nature to move so slowly.
‘Very good. Mind your breathing, though.’
‘I’m glad I can still breathe at all,’ my neighbor laughed.
The teacher ignored that comment, but went back to the front of the class. ‘For our next exercise, I have a little trick: imagine you’re holding a shopping trolley. With both your hands.’ She moved her hands upwards. ‘Now you slowly turn your upper body from the left to the right. Just your upper body.’
We tried. I thought I was going to manage, until the teacher looked in my direction, smiling broadly. ‘Your knees are moving as well, Carine.’
‘Of course my knees are moving.’
My neighbor exploded with laughter. The teacher came standing before her. ‘Is that how you hold a shopping trolley?’
She put one hand in her side and blew her blonde hairs out of her face. ‘I wouldn’t know. I tend to use a shopping basket.’
Now everyone laughed. Even the instructor sniggered.
‘Well. That was quite nice, wasn’t it? Are we doing this every week from now on?’
Veerle and I looked surprised at Els, who was sipping her cup of tea surprisingly cheerfully.
‘That’s fine by me,’ Veerle said immediately. ‘By the way, Carine, your new best friend is sitting over there.’
I followed Veerle’s gaze and saw the small, cheery woman sitting alone at a table on the other side of the cafeteria of the sports hall. Veerle resolutely stood up. ‘Let me go and ask her if she’ll come sit with us. She has a great sense of humor. I mean, if you can even make Els laugh, you’re good.’
Els looked up for a moment. ‘That’s true.’
The woman’s name turned out to be Melinda and it was her third class. ‘For the moment, I don’t really notice an improvement when it comes to my performance.’
‘Oh dear,’ I laughed.
‘Ah well, we’ll learn, sooner or later. I’m just doing it to relax my muscles anyway.’
‘Are they bothering you?’ Veerle carefully asked.
Melinda sighed resignedly. ‘They have been for a few years and they only seem to be getting worse. And seeing a physiotherapist doesn’t really work either. I’ve been to the doctor’s for a lot of tests the past few years. So far they’ve found nothing. Next week, I’ll be tested for fibromyalgia.’
‘We’ve got CFS.’ Veerle blurted out. I was usually a little reserved when it came to talking about my disease to people, because such a label seemed to have the same connotations for some people as the word ‘leprosy’ had during the middle ages.
‘All three of you?’ Melinda laughed somewhat nervously. ‘I’m sorry.’
Veerle smiled. ‘We got to know each other on a CFS meeting. Otherwise it would’ve been a really big coincidence, three friends with CFS.’
‘Or maybe it’s contagious?’ Melinda demonstratively pushed her chair back quite a distance.
‘You’ve already got fibromyalgia anyway, so you can handle a bit of CFS.’
Melinda’s contagious laughter echoed through the cafeteria. Several people turned to look at her, most of them with a grin on their faces. Veerle and I looked at Els, taken aback. We had never heard her make a joke before. We talked on for quite a while longer. I noticed how cheerful Els was. Would all of that really just be because of the tai chi, or were the supplements bearing fruit? In the end, they also helped against Maggy’s depression.
Veerle’s husband arrived to pick her and Els up. I had come by bicycle and had just ordered a cup of coffee, so Melinda and I were the only ones left. She pulled an agonized face while she massaged her shoulders. ‘My physiotherapist had suggested tai chi, because it was just about the only kind of sports that I could do without hurting.’
‘But it does still hurt, doesn’t it?’
‘Terribly.’ She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Every little movement hurts. Even my fingers are cramped. I really don’t know how to go on like this. This is no way of life.’
I had almost told her: I wish I could help, when I realized, I could.