The moment I stepped into English National Ballet’s studio, I stopped being just a patient. Among fellow spirits, I have rediscovered my sense of joy and agencyFourteen years ago, a neurologist told me: “You have Parkinson’s.” I remember his face before I remember his words: calm, certain, kind. Parkinson’s: a progressive neurological disease. No cure. In my mind, it was an old person’s disease. Something that happened to other people, later in life. Not to a single man in his early 50s who believed there was still time for romance, adventure, reinvention.What terrified me most wasn’t the tremors or the stiffness. It was the imagined future. I pictured a partner signing up not for love, but for care. I thought: who would choose that? Who would choose me, knowing this? Continue reading...