Good morning from Connecticut. Today, makes it 1,467 consecutive (almost) days on this daybreak morning walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a Row.
We were primed for another rant following last week’s diatribe: “Ladies Give Me Your Best Shot.” All the targeted Ladies (aka Sawsan) went scurrying back to her Den (with her Broom). Her replacement, while not an total embarrassment, is on her way to earning that merit badge shortly.
So, there’s one Lady left standing. I asked Susan if I can share more specifics about her OCD, that being her neuroses with light switches at the top and bottom of the stairs. Wally and I got a hostile reaction, and decided that this was a red line not to be tested.
I walk, wandering, ruminating. What shall we blog about today? Is it…
How I gained 10 lbs in 10 days? (Cake!)
How my insomnia has progressively deteriorated during the same period? (Cake?)
Why my Doctored-ordered Glucose test (a pre-diabetic alert) reported an alarming upward trend? (Cake?)
I walk.
I noodle these issues (and others), feeling the weight of their drag.
The only difference between a lake with waves and a lake without waves is the wind. A lake would be calm except for the wind. We would be calm if not for our thinking. We can tell how much of a turbulent effect the wind has on the lake by the size and strength of the waves. We can tell how much effect our thinking is having on us by the size and strength of our feelings. The wind is invisible. We can only feel the effects of it. Most of the thinking that affects us is also invisible. Our feelings are the only thing that tells us something is amiss.
Video: DK. April 22, 2024 @ 5:30 am at Cove Island Park.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
Inspired by: “It is exhausting, dizzying. It is good to feel all sorts of things, even the bad things that scare you, because they, too, push you in the direction of your convictions. — Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 6, 2024)
Also inspired by: “When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.” —Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (Grove Press in 2012)
DK Moolight Video shot at 5:00 am. this morning at Cove Island Park. More pictures of the amazing full moon and clouds here.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
…Sit your old bones down, because I’ve got bad news: you probably look older than you think you do. Don’t shoot the messenger – blame science. A recent study published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that 59% of US adults aged 50 to 80 believe they look younger than other people their age. Women and people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers; and only 6% of adults in the bracket thought (or realised) they looked older than others their age. In short, most of us are delusional.
While the survey only included people over 50, I reckon they would have got the same results if they polled anyone over 30. Our brains have inbuilt denial mechanisms that stop us confronting our own mortality. Many people’s biological age tends to differ from their “subjective age” (or how old they feel). Mine certainly does: according to my passport I’m 40, but in my head I’m still a sprightly 29.
I’m not totally deranged. I regularly have moments where I am reminded of my passing years. Eating in a restaurant tends to be one of them. Have restaurants become louder recently? Or have I just got more intolerant of noise? Either way, I’m pretty sure I didn’t grumble about decibel levels in my 20s.
My skinny jeans (which you will have to pry off my geriatric-millennial pins before I wear barrel-leg trousers) are also a perennial reminder that I am tragically over the hill in the eyes of gen Z. Then, of course, there are the newfangled random aches and pains – and the fact that I can now get a three-day-long crick in the neck simply from turning my head too fast.
Aches, pains and fashion faux pas aside, however, nothing makes me feel older than other people my age. I’m not talking about people I see regularly – you don’t really notice how they’ve matured. I’m talking about having an acquaintance from school or university pop up on social media and realising, with horror, that the fresh-faced teenager you remember is now an ancient-looking adult. “Surely, I don’t look that old?” I mutter to myself on those occasions. “Surely the ravages of time haven’t been so cruel to me?” Then I study myself in the mirror and realise, oh dear, they have.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not saying getting older – or looking older – is terrible. Far from it: ageing has many perks. I used to be terribly self-conscious and, in my 20s, I would rarely leave the house without makeup. Now, I no longer have any proverbial ducks to give, and run errands looking like a scarecrow. I wear makeup so rarely that, when I do, my dog becomes instantly alarmed because he knows something weird is up. It’s liberating to no longer care what people think…
Internalised ageism doesn’t just harm your wallet and confidence; it can hugely affect your health. Indeed, a study from 2002 found that people with more positive self-perceptions of ageing lived 7.5 years longer than others. Embrace your subjective age, in other words. There’s a lot of truth to the cliche that you’re only as old as you feel.
Susan Photo of Wally and me. Didn’t fit at all with this passage except for my receding hairline, my gray hair, my “paunch” covered by Wally’s private parts, my face wrinkles, the deep bags under my eyes, and the seat cushion that is doing its best to reduce chronic lower back pain (and other unmentionables). Outside of all THAT, I feel less than half my age.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
Just another ordinary Monday morning, making it 1,392 consecutive (almost) days in a row on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.
I loiter around the park, it’s a brisk 35° F. I linger waiting for the sunrise. I take some shots, pause for a moment (sigh), peaceful easy feelings.
And then, The Day starts.
6:45 a.m. I’m driving home, down Weed Avenue. I pass the Swan nesting area; I pass the little cut outs where I would park to take shots before heading home. I’m rubber necking back out over the water. Stop DK. Stop. Look at that Sunrise. I drive to the stop light prepared to turn on Post Road and head home, when the Cove pulls me back. I need to go back.
I park (illegally) as I have hundreds of times, leave the car running on the two lane road (as I have hundreds of times), grab my camera (as I have hundreds of times), crawl over the guard rail and walk to the break wall (as I have hundreds of times).
