Dancers
About a decade ago, while walking downhill on a cold night, after sitting through a movie, I noticed a slight impairment in what doctors taught me to call my “gait.” The condition was eventually diagnosed as a rare hereditary condition that would develop gradually and was incurable.
It was said to be caused by a deterioration of nerves to the legs. The soles of the feet would become less sensitive, impairing balance. Meanwhile, leg muscles would increase in “tone,” or in other words, become too tight. Various neurologists said this condition would be “progressive,” meaning not what Bernie Sanders intends by the word, but an increasing difficulty.
I’m grateful that the condition began when I was already retired, rather than, say, when I was an adolescent, and also that it worsened so slowly. For years I was reminded daily that walking needed to become a meditation, a practice which one usually has to attend a retreat to learn.
I now use a cane when I go out. It’s made of wood, a four-foot-long helix of curly willow. I bought it in the 1990s because it was beautiful and kept it in a corner, not necessarily ever expecting to use it. In my town, which has more than its share of retired people, it is always politely called a “walking stick.” Whenever I go out, as to the gym, a stranger always praises the stick.
Recently I am treasuring the witty utterance of a novelist who, shortly before his death, said that he knew everyone has to die but thought that, in his case, God would make an exception. I know almost everyone has something. Many people my age have much worse maladies, such as diabetes, a heart condition, cancer, or the aftermath of a stroke. An avid walker in earlier years, I am spending more time in front of a computer screen or TV, reading e-books, watching movies, writing. So far I have tapped out over a hundred internet articles, most of them less self-regarding than this. A selection can be found on my website.