“No one is so old as to
think he
cannot live one more
year.”
- Marcus Cicero
“Hey tall man, you need to take a nap!”
When the late afternoon comes, I find myself slipping into a
state of mind that is…well, a reduced state of mind.
It is almost as if my body is saying, “Look bud, the hump of the day is over…your energy levels are drifting,
and you need to plug into the grid for a quick recharge.”
Often, I’ll head for the bedroom for a power nap.
A power nap used to mean: close my office door, lie on my
back with legs on a chair for 15 minutes.
Some cosmic thing would happen, and I’d be energetic for the rest of the
day.
Power nap, is really the wrong expression for what happens
now!
I get horizontal, and within a minute or so, there is the
soft padding of feet along the bedroom floor followed by the scratchy sound of
those same feet at the bottom end of arthritic hips, making their way up the
small staircase at the side of the bed. Next a small calico head appears – eyes
just above the edge – seeming to express,
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here. Oh well, since I am already almost on the
bed, do you mind if I come on up?”
With that, and NOT waiting for a response, Leah mounts the
mattress, gives me ‘the look,’ – You want
this too – and with gentle, somewhat labored steps, climbs to my chest, where
she eases to her comfort position – paws crossed left over right – turns on the purring
machine, and along with the ‘tall man’ enters a twilight zone like a pair Zen masters
seeking oneness with each other and the universe.
It is what it is...
As my life journey moved past the thirties, I noticed
the difference between the beginning and the end of the day.
There is this metabolic thing that happens somewhere around the
third decade of life. Sparing the details, the physiologic energy processes
shift, and the things we could do, eat or drink seem to take a little more of a
toll, and we don’t recover quite so quickly.
As the decades glide along these things progress, and I found
myself, sometimes unwillingly, taking a little more care in order to continue
to be as active as I wanted to be.
The forties taxed me a little more and I began to accept the
fact that jumping as high and running as fast were probably NOT in my future,
and there were consequences to being a ‘weekend warrior.’
It took practically the whole 5th decade to
accept what had become evident in the 4th – some things would never
be the same again!
It was here, however, I realized I had more ‘spare time’
than in earlier decades. Since I couldn’t be as aggressively active, I could
read a little more…think a little more…look around a little more….
By the time the 60s came along, I had accepted the gentle
downslope of my life’s trajectory, working to keep from giving in, while at the
same time embracing the changes that seem to come with greater speed.
I suppose I began to believe there was wisdom in the words
of that great American philosopher Harry Callahan, probably known better by his
more common name ‘Dirty Harry,’
“A man’s got to know his limitations!”
I am curious about what the 70s will bring, but I’ll have to
wait a couple of years to see what’s behind that door.
Sometimes you need a
little help…
Part of the thing about being a human being is that often
you need a little help to see the obvious. Sometimes, in the biosphere of our
own minds, things are not quite so clear, and we need some guidance. I suppose
that is why God constructed us to be social creatures – you know, to help one
another.
There is truth in the aphorism: When I am weak, then am I
strong.
In this case, and in my home, the real world reality of that
saying would come from Molly.
On those afternoons, when the 5am full gas tanks don’t have
much left in them and I don’t seem to understand why my get up and go has
gotten up and gone, I get the gentle
look, possibly encouraged by Leah, and familiar voice,
“Hey tall man, you need to take a nap!”
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