When I worked in an eating disorders program years ago, we often had group discussions around ethical, moral and existential dilemmas ala Scruples. I recall one question being along the lines of if you had to choose between keeping your physical health or your cognitive/mental abilities which would you choose.  Without hesitation I chose my physical, corporal abilities. There was much surprise among the group as I had always positioned myself as a strong proponent of cognitive, rational thought and inquiry. I remember reasoning at the time that if one is able to move and function in day-to day living, they could always do things to improve their mental short comings. Like in the Star Trek episode with Jeffery Hunter who played Captain Kirk's mentor, Captain Pike... He had been badly injured.  He was mentally alert and sharp, but physically diminished to a "talking head" as his atrophied body was housed in a machine in order to keep him alive, but it was dead. To me, this seemed intolerable. A cruel fate.

At 51, I am experiencing arthritic changes in my knees that at times limit my activity. It is the fruition of a warning given to me by a nurse who completed one of my required sports physicals in college.  She foretold of my joint pains and advised me to eat fewer french fries.

Today, I stood on the back porch and watched two dynamic and wholly magnificent dogs chase and wrestle one another. They are in the prime of their youths muscles rippling, bodies freely bending this way  and that way-alive. I stood behind a porch pillar to protect my most recently inflamed knee (Meniscus tear). Made me think of Mary Oliver's multiple poems about her dog Percy.

I live with a 7 year old who embraces the wonders of her body and fully inhabits it and all it can do.  Youth in dog years or human years is truly amazing from a vantage point of 60 decades on the planet.

I feel old. I do not think myself old as I do believe 50 is the new 40, but it is still a shock when my body does not do what it seems to me it ought. So, I try to be mindful and grateful for what it does manage and I work at cultivating more mobility, strength and pain free days-and especially nights.

Here's to many more years of life-french fries and all!