So Now What?
I'll start by saying I had a great run this morning. Run for four minutes, walk for 60 quick paces, then do it again and again until the Tom Tom reads "4.25." For the most part my mind was happily empty (breathe in one-two-three, breathe out one-two, etc). But the New Year (It does get capitalized, right? It's a big-deal event) kept intruding into my peace of mind.
I remember way back in the day when I was pregnant, both the first and the second time. I was young, in my twenties, and was astounded that this body of mine was suddenly incubating a live human being. I'm sure I was very bad company during those months of my life. All I could really think, even while other subjects of great weight were under discussion around me, was "I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. Me! I'm constructing a baby as we sit here. This has never happened to me before!" Which is to say, I was unable to focus for any length of time on much else. I tried. I ended up calling myself selfish, narcissistic, shallow. None of that changed my 24/7 feelings of amazement.
I bring this up because as the New Year barrels along and I stand frozen in its path, I am living through yet another "It's all about me" experience. Next August I'll be 70. The effect this has on my mind and body is almost as radical as the effect of being pregnant. This time it's "I'm old! This has never happened to me before! Who is this person that people in the BART train try to give their seat to? And more important, who never ran fast but at least was comfortable doing 10.5-minute miles but now is happy if the average pace stays under 13?"
I've always liked the Buddhist concept that we should not view our bodies as synonymous with ourselves; rather, we should realize that a body is just a temporary habitat for our eternal spirit, which, once that body breathes its last, will just move into a different body. Kind of like when we get tired of an apartment and go out and rent a differently configured one. The whole problem for me is that my body keeps feeling it is, indeed, me. I now lurch when I walk. My hands refuse to open screw-top water bottles. When I read, my eyes protest after a half hour. Instead of hopping curbs when I run, I stop and carefully step up them. My scoliosis, which has since early adolescence just been a fact of life, like having blue eyes, has morphed into a major concern as the top half of my spine has decided to point more eastward than ever, while the bottom half is saying no, no, west is where I'm headed. It's a good spine, but increasingly, the old vertebrae don't stack up the way they used to.
So, I'm old. Big deal. Many, many people get old. What you may not know, however, is that while they are joking about "senior moments" or fumbling with their change while you stand behind them in the supermarket line and try not to get totally peeved, they are really aware of what they must seem like to the younger population sector. I go back to comparing the body experience of being older to the body experience of being pregnant. The former is a full-mind-and-body awareness of a pending total shutdown, while the latter is a full-mind-and-body awareness of a pending grand opening.
I won't try to make myself into a Bob Dylan song--that is, no drawing conclusions on the wall for me--but will just thank anyone who's read this far. Believe it or not, I feel this is a post about running, because what else are the welfare of my body and spirit other than a function of my running? My running friends and I like to tell race trainees they can "run forever." When you're old, forever is shorter than it used to be, but I still feel like I want to run until forever turns permanently into never. I just hope my body feels that way too.
Happy 2016. May your days be merry and bright!
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Ann Bartlett