Jane Curry and Bryan Crump. Photo: Bay Curry
One more wave, then head back to shore.
Jane Curry was body surfing with her partner - and fellow classical guitarist - Owen Moriarty at Raglan Beach on Boxing Day 2019.
It was the usual family summer holiday in the middle of a busy period, touring with the New Zealand Guitar Quartet (of which she and Moriarty made up half the membership) and looking at commissioning new pieces to play. She was one of the country's leading guitarists, and she was in her prime.
The New Zealand Guitar Quartet. Owen Moriarty is the second from the left, Jane Curry second from the right. Photo: Supplied
Those who surf, either with their bodies or on a board, will understand; maybe the next wave will be the one that gives you the thrilling ride all the way into shore.
Curry timed her swim and caught the Tasman swell just as it was breaking, but at the same time, another swimmer was preparing to dive under it.
The two collided under water. Curry's next memory is of staring up to a deep blue sky, wondering how she was going to get out of her predicament.
Speaking about the accident with RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump, Curry said she knew straight away something was wrong.
"I knew as I was being carried out of the waves… I could see my legs sort of moving in front of me, and they could have been somebody else's."
Just how wrong became fully apparent when she reached Waikato Hospital; her neck was broken.
She remembers asking the surgeon about her chances of walking again. The surgeon weighed up balancing hope against false promise and replied, "Not much."
Almost five years later Curry is learning to walk again, and maybe even to play again one day.
She chose to keep teaching the classical guitar and is regaining the use of her legs.
"You know, I was actually really frightened to listen to music after that injury. I didn't know where it was going to put me. I now listen more and more, not necessarily classical guitar.
"The thing I do really miss is that… there were times when I would put on music and I would dance… and I miss being able to really dance."
Although she came into RNZ's Wellington studios in a wheelchair, Curry can walk; that's thanks to hours of physio, work in the pool, and getting back on the horse - riding has always been a hobby of hers.
"I worked with this extraordinary physiotherapist, I have to say her name because she's had such a huge impact on my recovery, her name is Luci Austin… and she just has this incredible synthesis of years and years of knowledge and expertise and skill, but also an incredible sort of instinct and creativity that she has brought to me and my rehab."
But at the same time, Curry also acknowledges the blessing of having a close-knit family - especially when Austin had to dispense her physiotherapy via video-link during the Covid lockdown.
"I had one family member holding the camera, and two other family members enabling me to do this rehab."
Jane Curry. Photo: 2023 Clinton Lloyd Photography Ltd
Within a year of her injury, Curry felt ready to teach guitar again with the New Zealand School of Music out of Victoria University. However, her role was one of those disestablished when the university [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/498474/devastated-victoria-university-axes-229-jobs-and-six-courses carried out spending cuts last year], although she continues to teach privately.
Crump asks whether there were times Curry wanted to walk away from music. She pauses for a moment. She certainly suffered "serious grief" in the immediate aftermath of the injury, "and not really knowing who I was because I was so different from who I remembered".
She says she went back to teaching because classical guitar "is what I know best, and what I feel I have the most insights to offer".
During their conversation, Crump notices how Curry is moving her hands and fingers, and asks how confident she is of being able to play again.
"I don't know… it requires more than hands to play an instrument, it requires a sort of really fully functioning body in terms of sitting and holding the instrument and that endurance… I try to stay open-minded. They talk about eight years… eight years is sort of a time frame for someone who's had this life-changing injury to get their heads around it."
Curry says every spinal cord injury is unique, but there is a sense in which what happened on Boxing Day 2019 represents a new start in life; a new life in which everything she used to take for granted is not easily available this time around.
In that regard, in this new life, Curry says, she's just four-and-a-half years old.
And what does she plan to do in the three-and-a-half years before the eight-year anniversary of her life-changing event?
"I really don't know. I mean I would love to carry on teaching across all levels, I would love to carry on with my rehabilitation, I would love to be more ambulant, I would love to be able to develop my facility on my instrument… but you know, something that I've thought about a lot is how fortunate I've been in terms of my basic base-line privilege… and something that I find really distressing… is people who don't necessarily have all that.
"I would love for New Zealand to look after those people a bit better".
As for the other swimmer involved in that Boxing Day accident, Curry hopes they are not carrying any guilt about what she regards as a freak accident.
"If there is someone listening who knows this person, I would just like to reassure her - I'm pretty sure it was a her - that I'm doing alright and that it was very much an absolute accident and so I hope they're not carrying anything unnecessarily, and if they want to get in touch - by all means."
Jane Curry. Photo: Bay Curry
