Look at It This Way

I’m looking back at what I’ve written here in the last week and thinking Yikes! A lot of silly talk about ladies’ underwear? An account of setting fire to the evening meal once again? A video showing dogs with human hands eating with knives and forks? It must’ve been an off week for me, though it did bring me one nice thing: a brand-new friend who found me at Columnists.com. We had some back-and-forth about the scribbling trade and the next day he had this to say:

So you told me I should write in my blog every day, and if you read my post today you will see that can lead to a bit of a stretch. Then I read your post this morning and I say, “Geez she’s writing about her crooked frickin’ spine!?” And I am somehow strangely entertained by this. My initial response was genuine concern for your well-being, which is odd since up until Saturday I didn’t even know you existed. But then my concern lessened, and turned to ease and chuckles when you described the state of your pants. 

He was referring to the post where I talked about how I’m trying to ‘treat’ my recently-emerged case of scoliosis by going to the Y every day.

Someone said, not sure who, maybe me that  life has a way of putting us exactly where we need to be, when we need to be there.

“Wow!” was all I could think. “Maybe that’s true!” I mean I HATED to exercise when I was young; hated to do much of anything that didn’t involve either reading or talking my face off. And now here I am, thrilled every day to be hurrying into the Y to do the treadmill, and the  funny machine that makes you feel like you’re roller blading, and then the Pilates or the Yoga or the lifting of weights while balancing on a therapy ball, depending on what day it is.  This new friend has thanked me like six times in five days for the few tips I gave him about getting your writing out there. The the truth is I should be thanking HIM for having pulled me away from self-mockery AND self-pity and made me see that Old Alfred Lord Tennyson was right: "Though much is taken,” in the course of our living, “much abides. “And” - shall I finish it? I have it memorized. It’s Ulysses, aged now, at the end of his long, long voyage: "Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will - to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."   Yeah!Now here's me at the Y on the Technogym Wave Runner, which is the real name of that  thigh-and-glute building skatey machine. I look pretty good for my age don't I? ;-) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0KvopwtTB8&feature=related]