May 2, 2011
I talked recently with a friend who also lives with PD. We’d touched on travel, parenting, work — the variety of topics that one often covers over coffee or lunch with a confidante. Interestingly, there was a common theme threading through the different thoughts, ideas, plans. We kept coming back to now. “I’m able to at the moment,” she said about a dance program she teaches. “Because I can,” I added about a bike trip I’d be taking in Virginia. Knowing that this disease doesn’t get better has heightened our awareness that now is all we have. I’ve heard others with chronic conditions express it, too, this sense of immediacy. If now is good, then there’s no time like the present to move ahead with our thoughts, plans, ideas. So yogic, this living in the now. I’ve been wondering, though, is there more? This poem answers my question Yes, now, […]
April 27, 2011
April, even in these last days as we edge toward May, showers each day with so much. Admittedly, the start of the month held little magic with its umpteenth snowstorm here in New England. Yet, the white clung to the trees just long enough to admire before melting in the promisingly warm sun. It came as a gift of a reminder that what we dread can hold beauty and that all things change with time. Travel to New York City brought much better weather and an invitation to the annual Team Fox dinner. The evening’s events centered on thanking Team Fox fundraisers. What a sprinkling of delights! A sense of pride swelled for our efforts — Team Fox’s New England Parkinson’s Ride raised more than $100,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2010. We’re dedicated to doing it again in 2011 (I’ll be posting a link to sponsor me and […]
April 19, 2011
I’m watching a circle of middleschoolers on the playing fields launch into jumping jacks. Such a spring sight – team practice – all that energy flowing easily through the bodies of seventh and eighth graders. I feel myself smile recalling my years on the track team. Wait a second. I’ve been gypped. By the seventh grade, I’d already been in physical therapy for six months. Following a stroke, wind sprints and baton-passing drills hardly came with ease. Even my jumping jacks leaned to the left. Tension takes over and the smile disappears. Sweat beads up on my forehead first, sprouting in spots along the way to my feet. Wait another second. What is this bone-gripping sensation taking over my body? I recognize that I haven’t moved like those kids in thirty-five years. I’m aware that I shifted from gimpy to seriously gimpy with the addition of PD. Anger sweeps in […]