“Bend and Stretch, Reach for the Stars. Or At Least My Big Toe.”

“Bend and Stretch, Reach for the Stars. Or At Least My Big Toe.”

Firmness. My body was void of firmness and if you disliked reading my thoughts on blue jeans and oatmeal you better stop here.

When I injured my knee last fall, my body and the tightness there of quickly became a casualty. In my year to push through comfort zones, I chose not to panic about such flighty things. Then the Victoria Secret swimsuit catalog arrived followed by the release of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and I found myself online ordering the 1960s Butterwick Pattern 3115 of a Gidget swimsuit and cover-up.

I don’t fancy myself still a young maid posing in swimwear with sand clinging to body parts. (No wonder they’re pouting, even as children we couldn’t wait to wash that itchy stuff off.). But I do want to be closer to the catalog side of things rather than clothing that winters in Sarasota, not for the sun, but to house extra llamas at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Desperate times result in desperate measures. I called Beverly Morris, personal trainer.

She gave lots of encouragement on a fit life after running. But once the workout started, it became apparent after decades of jogging there was one thing my body refused to do like a toddler being pried off her mother’s leg.

Stretch.

Where was the girl of splits, straddles and flying Herkies? She was still on the beach watching the boys surf and for once in her life not minding sand stuck to the back of her thighs.

It was humiliating. To lean over my leg and come to a screeching halt at a ninety degree angle. My body rejuvenation quest was immediately rerouted. Priority number one became releasing my complaining frame back to some degree of free movement.

Decades of living had resulted in tendons that felt as if they held an expanse of that Brunswick suspension bridge. That’s what I loved about running. The pounding of the pavement beat the living daylights out of my stored stress. But decades of exercising without any change in routine compacted my body like Wile E. Coyote smushed by a boulder.

Minds are no different. Trapped in the same patterns year after year decade after decade, our ideas about things become compressed into a tight, unyielding mass.

It might be a little uncomfortable. Or a lot uncomfortable, but as we age our thoughts need to be pulled new places – or back to old places before we did the same things over and over. How about next Sunday, everyone sit in a different pew?  The pastors will love it. (Okay. Better not risk freaking out the clergy.)

Current world events testify to what happens when people start stretching out of comfort zones.  Sometimes another way might be the better way. Or at least result in a better understanding of why someone acts so passionately in ways our minds have trouble bending.

So I will keep stretching. A girl’s got to have flexibility. Maybe not so much in the body anymore — but she can be Gumby forever in her mind. 

This Wednesday my blog will feature an e-interview with Roselyn “Lulu” Anderson. She’s a busy woman who is not afraid to try new things from running her own business, volunteering to water aerobics.