My Body Ageing

I can almost feel it on the cellular level – this body on loan to me ageing.

I stand at the sink and wash my hands, aware of their morning stiffness, with a prescience of time yet to come when one hand, of necessity, will cradle the other, frozen in place by the vagaries of time.

Where did my ancestors get the courage to get out of bed?

Grandma, walking and walking and walking some more, hoping against hope to walk the pain out; or maybe just needing to prove to herself that in spite of all, she still could – until she couldn’t.  That was the day she died – the day when she could no longer walk.

My people are a moving people.

We may move in place – marking our territory with our pacing.

Or we may travel far.

But we are a moving people.

My mother now travels with her mind in the books she reads and with her fingers with the many family and friends she ‘visits’ across the many lines, tangible and intangible, that now connect us.

It’s true: bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, while bodies at rest, well . . .

Time is a sneaky, creeping thing: there’s always plenty of it . . . until there isn’t.

My body ageing is warning me – don’t believe Sister Time’s lying ways.