GET OFF YOUR A**, DAF

I feel like a slug, I moaned to Jim in early January.

Even with my concerted effort to get to the pool five mornings a week, cold winter days frequently find me, post-swim, hunkered down with a good book or performing the most simple of household tasks. Is an hour at the pool enough? I ask myself. Of genuine concern is that this sedentary winter existence, like the bubonic plague, will infect the remainder of my year.

Don't lecture me! I am fully aware of the health issues caused by a sedentary lifestyle - high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, dementia......and on and on the list goes.  With the big 7- 0 looming, one mental image strikes fear into my very heart:

Inevitable? I sure as hell hope not.

An inspiration for me is friend, Graham, who walks every day. Rain, shine, frigid cold, or sweltering heat present no excuses for Graham. The universally recommended 10,000 steps per day are also not an issue; daily and lengthy walks are part of the fabric of his life.  Small wonder he is physically fit and looks twenty years younger than his actual age.  During dinner at Jane and Graham's home in January, he showed me his Fitbit device, describing its use. Bingo! Just what I need - a way to confirm my level of activity!

Ever vigilant, Jim spotted my excited interest and, bless his heart, gifted me with a Fitbit Flex. OMG, I am hooked. More than just an advanced pedometer, this little weightless wrist device tracks activities, kilometres walked, calories burned, sleep patterns and, should you elect to input what you eat, calorie intake. Perhaps I should have titled this blog, " Big Brother Is Watching".

Worries that I would simply feel guilty have been put to rest.  I am motivated to stay active, to hit my minimum of 10,000 steps per day. Be it at home or away, I now create excuses to use our household stairs or reasons to walk further. Like a child in kindergarten attempting to earn stars, I now push to have the five tiny lights flash their signal that I have reached my activity goals. In truth, what I am monitoring is peace of mind that I won't morph into a slug.

Oh, and now Jim also wears a Fitbit Flex. The daily challenge is on - who can take the most steps!

Well, enough of this blog, I have to get off my a** and move. Can't let that husband of mine log more steps!

WHO WOULD YOU BRING "INTO TODAY"?

The year is 2010. An emotional Vincent Van Gogh moves in wonder through an exhibit of his paintings in Paris' Musee d'Orsay, listening to the Museum's curator refer to him as one of the world's greatest artists. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty, he hears.

What? But Vincent Van Gogh died in 1890, you argue. Of course he did. I haven't gone completely dotty........not yet, anyways.The scene I describe is from a British TV episode in which the time travelling Dr. Who and Amy attempt to have a tortured, self doubting Vincent realize his legacy by bringing him into the future. Knowing my love of Van Gogh's work and my fascination with his life, our son, Christopher, emailed the YouTube clip to me. Shamelessly, I admit to loving it. I actually shed a tear. Pure fantasy, but oh, how wonderful. Would that we could bring figures from the past "into today" so that they might understand their impact on our world. What a concept. And then my imagination flew. Not a mental game of what historical figure would I like to meet, I asked myself instead, Who would you bring "into today" and where would you take them?

I have a dream. My first thought was to bring Martin Luther King "into today". How I would love to walk the streets of any American city today enjoying his expression as blacks and whites together, exit the subway, enter places of employment, and eat in cafes, all without National Guard presence to force such integration. Though definitely not a perfect world, no one can argue that American race relations have come a long way since King's African-American Civil Rights Movement and subsequent 1968 assassination. Nothing, though, would make me happier than to have Dr. King ushered into the Oval Office and to hear the introduction, Dr. King, please meet President Barack Obama. Did he dream that far, I wonder.

Wouldn't it be fun to fly with Orville and Wilbur Wright on a jet or let Alexander Graham Bell handle that little rectangular box of communication, the iPhone? I doubt they could ever have imagined the impact of their dreams on future generations. How incredible it would be to bring them "into today".

As an admitted sentimentalist and making no apologies, my first choice of who to bring "into today" would be my parents.  I would like to seat my Mother at our Christmas Dinner table, watch her realize that her traditions continue to be celebrated, hold my breath as her glance settles on the laughing, bubbling, blond-haired young sister and brother at the table, and then feel overwhelming joy as Matthew introduces his beloved Gramma to her great grandchildren. I would feel my hand in my Father's as we walk the corridors of learning. His older, slower pace I know would lighten just to be in this university milieu. Into the rear of a classroom we would deke, just as the lecture commences. I can picture my Father in rapt attention and then the tears welling in his eyes as I nod towards the Professor and whisper in my Father's ear, Dad, you are listening to our Christopher.  

Ah! imaginery musings, these may be, but what about yours? Suspend reality for a moment. Who would you bring "into today" and where would you take them?