Shaky Foot Wisdom XXIX
Coming Around the Bend
April 1, 2021
Coming around the bend at close to eight months since my Parkinson’s diagnosis and I feel like this race is more the steady pace of a Ford rather than the deep-throated throttle of a Ferrari. I lean into the curves thrown and keep on keeping on.
With dogwood blooms dancing into Spring, I feel at times that same tickle to move about, to actually get up and out of our overstuffed chair and do something, anything. As a recent cold snap has ended and warmer temperatures are approaching, our local Arboretum’s multicolored trails beckon. When the desire to go walking overcomes the lack of desire to not go, I will surely enjoy a return to the eagerly anticipated delights waiting there.
And yet, how to get moving about remains the question. Though now after discovering Rock Steady Boxing was not necessarily for me, due to increased hip pain, I feel ready to engage. There are likely other movement classes that may allow me the opportunity to move and gain the flexibility that I will need to keep coming around the bend and manage the curves thrown.
When I used to ask my dear friend and spiritual mentor Imogene, how to keep going forward when the obstacles seemed to be so substantially in the way, she would just lean in to look at me with her warmth and depth and say, “dear boy, ‘just keep putting one foot in front of the other”. And now, Imogene, I understand.
[Coming Around The Bend photo by Michele James]
