You know the rule – a body at rest tends to stay put while a body in motion tends to keep on moving. Given time, I think I’d have figured that out. But in the meantime, I would like to apply that principle to life after the two minute warning has sounded. God, have I ever told you how I just hate sports metaphors?

I have always been a devotee of activity. I guess I should say, that activity was the default mode of my life. I was always a laborer. I worked with my hands and did labor insensitive things. I complained all the time but really, it was good for me. Then one day I became enlightened and thought I needed a college education and at that point, I began to put on weight because I was always reading a book or sitting in the library.

Then one day, I became enlightened again. This can happen many times in the same lifetime. This enlightenment was the true enlightenment – meaning the most recent one – and it meant that I needed to do something about being a big fat blob. I had been a certified body at rest.

I began to run. I ran off 75 pounds. I became a body in motion. I found that I could run and run for hours. Not fast, you understand, but steady. A marathon crowd would be into their third six pack by the time I got there. That’s why I never saw that as a priority. I would have missed out on all that beer.

Well, if you live long enough, and I seem to have done that, you begin to feel the ravages of aging. The pressure to remain at rest is overwhelming. Stiffness, aches and pains, the lack of endurance and finally the inevitable loss of strength confront you every moment. About that last part, there are some things you can do to delay it but strength diminishes over time no matter what you do. Time will win that battle.

There are always exceptions and you will believe you are one. Trust me – you’re not. I’m sorry, I meant to say, I am not that exception. I believe I am healthier for knowing that. I don’t always know it. Just today I said to CA that I would climb up a limb on this huge maple tree and cut it off bit by bit so it wouldn’t be hanging over the wood shed. What? she said. You are 80 years old and YOU ARE NOT CLIMBING THAT TREE WITH A CHAIN SAW! She was almost shouting. Upon reflection, I saw that her logic was bullet proof. This is called wisdom.

I have always been able. I hate being unable to do some of the things I have always done. If I may say so: it sucks.

So, there is a compromise. You move when you can and you enjoy your moments of rest. But you do move. You get up and you move. As long as you can, you move. Not everybody gets to be old, and not everybody who gets to be old can move, but if you do get to be old and can move – count your blessings and move! There will always be time to rest.