A few days before Easter a good friend knocked on my door. This is a friend who has known me since the days of center parts and blue eye-shadow. My sins and peccadillos are as familiar to her as hers are to me, and equally forgiven. She’s the type of friend who will carry my birthday present around in her car for three months before getting it to me, but then show up with a fabulous gift for Arbor Day. Delightfully - predictably - unpredictable, the sort of friend everyone should have. And so sure enough, when I opened the door that pre-Easter afternoon I found her holding a large oblong box, the sort of size and shape to comfortably house a ventriloquist dummy. Inside were two large cloth rabbits, boy and girl, long-eared and charmingly anthropomorphic right down to their little shoes. She does know me well. “They reminded me of you two”, she said. (As these rabbits are only tangential to this story, I’ll place their photo at the close. I know you want to see them.)
Over a Diet Coke and something tasty - I don’t remember what - I noticed she was wearing a very fetching sweater. She proceeded to share with me where she got it, encouraging me to shop there as soon as possible. “You’ll love it! Great clothes.” But then… “You’re not listening to me, are you? What are you…. Oh, you’re trying to figure out how to make this, aren’t you? Good Lord.” (Again, the sweater is not the point, but the link to her new favourite shop is at the close. You’re welcome. )
She was right, of course. I was studying that sweater with an eye to needle and wool, figuring out seams and gauge as I smiled and nodded like any normal person. Caught out, I had to wonder. When did I become the sort of person who would rather figure out how to knit a fabulous sweater than go shopping for one? Truth was, the more I thought about it I realized that it had been months since I’d passed through the automatic glass doors of a shopping mall. Another bit of me that has gradually, yet pointedly, changed.
It tickles me that as I get older, rather than comfortably folding my feathers, I appear to be evolving outward, my interests and curiosities rippling around me in ever expanding circles. More than ever there are places I want to go, things I wish to see, experiences I long to dive into headfirst. My habits of old are not necessarily my habits of late. Only recently, for instance, I have become a regular at my city’s gym and if you knew me well that last statement would cause you to spit your Earl Grey out all over your dressing gown. While it’s true I regularly ramble with Edward over hill and dale, concentrated exercise activity, the sort that involves perspiring and heart rate elevation, has never exactly been on my to-do list. But that has now changed.
Every other day, sometimes more often, I can be found at the gym, speeding along on a treadmill, or climbing virtual peaks on some contraption called an elliptical. While I freely admit that the first day I did this I could not see the attraction in the slightest, I now find…. and this is the difficult part to admit to and/or comprehend… I really enjoy it. I actually look forward to it. I get loads of fist bumps from my African-American brothers exercising alongside me, though I seriously doubt they would be so generous with these if they knew I was listening to the soundtrack of The Music Man in my headphones. And let me tell you, nothing assuages election year angst like imagining you’re chasing a tarred and feathered Donald Trump off a high cliff while running flat out on a treadmill. Oh, how my heart rate soars!
While I doubt I shall ever achieve the perky posterior of Pippa Middleton, I do feel incredibly strong and energetic at present which is never a bad thing. I’m also sleeping like a baby at night, which is another plus. I may never like raw oysters or football, but it’s strangely exciting to wonder just what I might get up to next.
What about you?
What new avenues are you pursuing at present?
And by the way... as I approach my 8th year of writing
From the House of Edward,
I have to wonder....
Does anybody read blogs anymore?