2014

I used to scoff at what the rest of the world embraces at the close of every year. Most people (Survey Says!) tell themselves they’re going to lose weight and start and exercise regimen only to fall off their solemn promises before January’s last day. There are other resolutions about relationships, vocations and making more money but my resolution this year is to live one day at a time. Not to say I don’t have a plan or goals for the year but each day I resolve when I open my eyes tell myself I am grateful and thanking God that all my bodily functions are in order. That to me is more important than anything else. If I stay grateful everything else my Higher Power (that I choose to call God) will bestow on me.  Granted it that it might not necessarily be everything I want but in the words of Mick Jagger just what I need. 

Oh and I will resolve to drink more water, eat sensible meals and think about nourishing my body before I take to my Schwinn. 

62.9

As I leave the 3rd year of my sexagenarian decade I am in wonder about a number of things. Firstly it’s my health, which is amazing! I feel better now at almost 63 than I did when I was in my 50s. The main ingredient has been spin class and my dedication okay obsession with it. And truth be told we have to be obsessed if we are in pursuit of any meaningful goal.  I knew that when I took up spin class in January of 2010 that it was my opening to get back to the fitness I enjoyed as late as my 40s. But because of knee problems I was forced to give up running which had always served me well in keeping my weight down and my stamina up!

Our health is not always based on how we work out of course. It can be taken from us in the blink of an eye. And since we only have today I will enjoy my good health as long as the man upstairs deems that I can keep it.  I never take it for granted. AA taught me that and it has been my credo ever since I joined that fraternity some 8,888 days ago. I am still in awe and wonder that I have stayed stopped. 

 A loved one is facing the challenge of his life right now and he makes me realize more than ever that our future is never a guarantee. We expect to live long lives we never think about dying until the unthinkable happens. I have joked about the “stick is getting shorter” referring to how much more time I might have given the number of spins around the sun I’ve already been privilege to but now the sense more than ever now of my own mortality.  We all die that is one of life’s guarantees but now that it’s closer than the start of my journey here on earth I try to cherish each day. 

 Now when I’m faced with a situation that I think will affect my well being I don’t panic like I used to and I quickly remember the phrase: God doesn’t take us this far to drop us on our heads. I sometimes recite that in Jack’s brain and it gives me relief from just about anything that is worrying me. The other quote from childhood has me a believer that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle which echoes the mantra that I am not alone.  

At 62.9 I feel pretty spry if not limber (but that’s my own fault) and when I get vain and think I need to lose a few more pounds I try to muzzle it and tell myself to get a grip. I mean there are a few things I could do like drink more water eat and more complex carbohydrates but I don’t feel like I have to pass on that black and white cookie all the time. 

Rise of the Phoenix

I can’t remember a more tumultuous year than 2013.  It started out on a high note and went downhill in quite a precipitous fashion. Hopes became curdled milk and the smell of spoiled promises left me wondering why I trust anyone’s covenants except for an exception or two. 

Along came a man that I have always trusted in the past and a year that seemed like a hopeless situation became an opportunity for me to do what I do best. And that is pitch the 9th. I didn’t have to find an audience he put me in front of them and for that I will be forever grateful. He recognized what I have always known and that is my God given talent. Hell will have to freeze over before I bobble this ball.  

In 6 months I have returned from purgatory and my penance is up.  Rising like the Phoenix I am. 

Ice Cream Man in the Sky

I hear the sound of the ice cream man and his cacophony of sleigh bells echoes inside my head. He rang them with purpose to attract our little child senses. In the hollow of our mind he resides. It takes me back to a simpler time when each life task presented itself in real time not like it is today with the rapidity of a machine gun leaving us numb in its wake. Trying to hold onto a sense of reality leaves many stones unturned. Some we have no choice but to leave them to gather moss.

The ice cream man in the sky will always float endlessly in the hard drive of my memory banks. At least I knew when life wasn’t a whir, double click, boink. I feel sorry for those people that don’t know who Steve McQueen was or think that The Breakfast Club is an old movie.  I may be a dinosaur but I am so glad I knew how Lassie raised her paw at the end of the show. God life was so different then it makes me cry.  The ice cream man in the sky may have passed on to the great beyond but he lives on and on right here with me.