One of the important lessons that I learned about myself, when I vacationed in Japan in March, was that I have a balance problem. I sort of knew it but was not really paying it a lot of attention because it really was not interfering with my lifestyle that much.
But when I went to Japan in March, and I was walking through camellia gardens, I found myself needing to walk on hillsides because Japan is a series of islands that are volcanic and, therefore, that are slopes. And also shallow roots made it a tripping hazard to, to walk through camellia gardens that were interspersed with pine trees. Pine trees are a — provide a natural mulch. The needles fall off the pine trees and mulch the camellias below, but then, there are shallow roots that one can trip on.
And I was — became very afraid of falling. In fact, I often asked some of the gentlemen in our tour to let me hold their arms while I was walking through the gardens because I was afraid that I was gonna fall down.
There was a very kind lady in our tour who noticed that I was having a problem walking, and she told me that she had brought along an extra walking cane. And she said she didn’t need it but she brought it just in case. And she said, “Would you like me to lend you my walking cane?”
And I said, “Yes, ma’am. That would just be wonderful.” So she lent me her walking cane, and I used it for the rest of the tour.