I was on the bus today working my way back from the doctor's office. I went to see about a nasty little cut on my right big toe; it seems to be getting infected. Regardless it's the bus ride that was important to me today. I saw something and it struck me as I was sitting on the bus. There was this young lady walking across the parking lot and I was absolutely taken by, of all things, her shoulder muscles.
These well defined deltoids of hers moved with this firm fluidity, the kind of muscle movement that only comes from that combination of exercise and good health. As she walked along the parking lot, I was taken by the natural rhythm of movement, both in her walk and in that shoulder muscle. It bulged, not with the grotesque shape of a body builder, but more with a graceful form of perhaps a dancer or rower. It showed all the right signs of exercise and fitness, unfortunately the kinds of things I no longer see in myself.
I guess that's what really struck me about seeing the fluid movement of this muscle on her shoulder. It was the realization that I haven't had that for a long time my muscles. I will never again show that kind of wonderful grace, that reliability and confidence of movement. I will never again have a muscle that is formed through the good grace of exercise and a life of activity. Never again will I grip a line crossing the sailboat hull and see the firmness of my shoulder and arm muscles spring to life, filled with both adrenaline and the natural strength that only activity can bring. Never again will I trod firmly across the forest floor, certain of my gait, confident that I can handle the uneven, treacherousness of rubble and branch covering my path.
It is that powerful combination of youth and health the forms those kinds of muscles, allowing your body to carry that inner conviction of ability for years afterwards. I had this kind of strength right up until ALS stole it from me. Now I miss the opportunity. I miss the chance to move my muscles like that. I miss that feeling of inbound native strength and knowing that it's there when I need it. ALS has taken that from me too, the muscle as well as that feeling. I want it back.
Richard, I feel you. However, whatever the actual grace and fluidity of a young body displaying health and strengh today, it is still a thermodynamic system with a high antropy factor and it will break down sooner or later, be it from disease, injury or mere aging. What strikes me is to see a child and telling me the universe will just blink its eye, so to say, and that child has become an old timer. No matter the youth and strengh, it's all so impermanent it makes on wonder about the precariousness of all things living.
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