"Keep Safe!" she shouts in a general farewell, including everyone in the center, as she bounces to the sign off station. Her hair and skin glow with health, her eyes shine with excitement at her task (though it is routine and quite boring), and her fingers tack busily over the keyboard without doubts or hesitations in a well-remembered sequence of letters and numbers.
It is 8 pm, closing time at my writing center.
I watch her, a useless, practiced smile sketched under my mask.
Forgive me, Reader, I confess to lowly envy. The woman I was watching was chronologically older than I. I wondered, for the nth time, at an octogenarian's energy, enthusiasm, and verve at the end of the day, when I, decades younger, feel ready for my nap an hour after my morning shower!
I do not feel the defeating fatigue I once felt any more. But by 2 pm, I am definitely yawning and by 8 pm, my drive home looms like an eternal journey before me. I am surrounded by people who are only kind and consoling. They tell me that I am older; everyone slows down sooner or later; I am not healed yet; after all, my body is tired. It goes on.
Today, in my lingering envy, I meander along the confusing, contradictory advise for a list of allowable foods for transplant patients. Some websites insist that dragon fruit can be toxic, while some swear by the necessity of its nutrition; some insist on including bean sprouts while others caution me away from them; I should have complex carbohydrates, like pasta, as part of my diet and some scream at me to avoid being in the same room as pastas; all cheese is bad but some may be okay; apples should be avoided; apples are okay.
To my extreme disappointment, my transplant center is not home to dieticians. I have no idea if what I am doing is okay or if I am causing incurable damage to my poor body.
How do my octogenarian colleagues do it?
One such colleague winked at me and claimed that after a point, one begins getting younger; that's why old-age is often referred to as a second childhood. I thought of one of my cats, who as a kitten, would suddenly be possessed of an incredible amount of energy, more than her little body could hold, causing her to tear wildly around the house and neighborhood. I want to believe my colleague.
Oh to climb trees and ladders! Oh to walk for hours without tiring! Oh to run down a grass covered slope! Oh to race along the beach!
And most of all, Oh to dance!
It seems to me today, that I have yet to learn effective body management. Perhaps, if I am wise and attentive, I will learn it in the next couple of decades. I must listen and re-learn my body's syntax, the music it prefers, the foods that properly nourish it, the amount of sleep it needs, and the messages it continually sends me.
I have trotted across the globe, traveled many lands, believing that my Janma Bhoomi (land of birth) is different from my Karma Bhoomi (land of action). However, I find that I needn't have traveled at all: I needed, need to only understand the topography and language of my first and only home, my body.
Once I learn that, perhaps, just maybe, I might find a good friend.
