Still

I’ve been in a forced-still state going on 4 weeks.  Nothing serious.  Just the result of being a certain age and having a certain something removed.  My major adventures have been washing my hair and looking out windows a la Jimmy Stewart.  I don’t do Still well.

I am a type A control freak with vacillating ADHD.  I exercise every morning as if training for active duty or at the very least a marathon –  I’ve done 15.

I come from a long line of DO-ers.  I  recall sitting on the edge of my mom’s bed, eating a frosted pop tart (ironic), while she did her calisthenics.  “Barclay, you have to get out of breath once a day,” she’d say.  Peggy was ahead of her time — though never without pearls and pumps (I dare you to try jumping jacks in heels.)  She didn’t have Jane Fonda to guide her – only a well-worn copy of the Royal Canadian Exercise Plans for Physical Fitness whose target audience was clearly male.

My dad, Champe, jogged and tennis-ed his way into his mid-90s, fighting the inevitable shrinking of life with religious zeal. When walking became problematic, he shuffled the driveway with a bike helmet and a walker.  He took up tennis in his 50s and in his 80s was still working on his topspin.

So how have I been coping?  First, I am grateful.  My friend Mary is in the battle of her life with cancer nodules lingering in her lungs.  Any of us can wake up to discover a lump, a something, that wasn’t there the day before.  (And you thought this blog would be uplifting.)

So yes, I am thankful.

And oh so productive.

Thanks to YouTube, I learned how to make beach-y waves in my hair.   And I finally subscribed to the digital NY Times where amid news and op-eds, I discovered that  face exercises  can make you look 3 years younger. There’s scientific proof.  Game changer.  So I’ve been quite busy making fish faces and craning my neck to “kiss” the ceiling.  3 years is 3 years.

But I’ve also taken to praying out loud.  Talking with God about pretty much everything.  It may sound disrespectful or trite —  but I’m enjoying hanging out with God.  I’ve been using this ReadScripture app with hand-drawn videos that make the complex understandable.

So Amazon is probably wondering why they haven’t heard from me today, being that it’s 9AM.   And Facebook  —  with its too cute babies, and women with easy beach-y hair, and Suzanne Somers luring me to her ageless beauty systems — needs to be reeled in.  (QVC has to be shunned —  that could be the downfall of our bank account.)

But being still and working on ones inner life isn’t so bad.  Or scary.  Granted, I know it’s not forever and I’m not in egregious pain.  I’ve just been given a taste, a preview.

I’ve been able to sit in God’s presence, His shelter, and know that He is God.  Psalm 46:10.  He really is.

Working on topspin can’t compete.