It's November and the first thing that happens in November is our daughter's birthday. And this year was a milestone, or a milepost if you're driving the Alaska Highway, because her original birthdate was 50 years ago. What's that make me? I was 31 when she was born. I guess it makes me old.
There a heap of clichés about being old: age is just a number, older than dirt, over the hill, you're as old as you feel, you're not getting older-you're getting better, seventy is the new 50. Having passed the octogenarian mark I have made some observations, and let me tell you that age is not just a number. In short, movements of my body are notably slower, and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to note the change of speed. Often the slower moving senior feels muscles and joints than faster moving juniors don't even know that they exist. I don't know if there's a cliché about being glad to see the sunrise in the morning, but I definitely love seeing the sunrise each morning. I love waking up alive.
One of my daily goals is to move, not just sit or lie around. Modern technology, specifically my iPhone, counts my steps and my goal is 5000 steps a day. Rather arbitrary but realistic. That's not the 10,000 recommended by the medical community - I think that what they say - but on a average busy day it's about what I accomplish. On a busy above-average day I might reach 7,000-8,000 but on those days I am painfully exhausted.
Less predictable than a birthday on November 1, is the Oregon rain. It may not be predictable but it is reliable and today was a rainy one. At least early in the day it was rainy. As the sun peeked through mid-afternoon I grabbed my iPhone, my jacket, my rain hat and my walking stick and headed out. It's hard to walk fast today, the fall colors kept calling for me to slow down and look more closely at the beauty. As I was rounding the loop, coming up the hill toward the house, I spied a bush that was just a gorgeous purple, or sometime close to that - I have visual color deficiency, not completely color blind. I was impressed. I probably said something like "God, you out did yourself. Thank you."
If I were to chronicle the changes throughout the cycle of a year, this would be the time to include the fantastic changes that vegetation make as the weather cools. The leaves on trees change colors, each in their own time, and then fall to the ground. The chestnut is slow, the walnuts are almost bare. The ash and alder are ahead of the oaks and the maples are somewhere in between. The laurels ignore the rules and stay green year-round. The lilacs and magnolias have more leaves the ground than on the branches. Each to their own.
Now the sun has set and I say to myself, I'm so glad that I can go to bed and sleep well. Good night.
