In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

In the Warm Suds with Aches and Pains

            I like the feeling of the nothingness that water has when you are in it.  A gentle pressure in a large swimming pool or pond when you move your arms and legs about but there is not anything that matches the feeling of a hot tub with bubbles surrounding you as you play with the mountains of knees reaching out from the water, toes seeking air for no reason at all while you soak in the total bliss of comfort.  It is my reward for waking up in the morning and having the following conversation.

            “Why, do you hurt?” This is me asking whatever body part seems to be complaining at the moment.  

            “Come on, answer me.” Once again I am asking the offending part of my body a very simple question. 

            As always, there is dead silence except for an occasional creak or pop from another portion of my body which might possibly be a knee or finger or ankle.  Anymore I really can’t tell though my hearing is still excellent.  I am able to hear the birds outside trilling and chattering in the trees. I notice each separate raindrop as it hits the windows and the wooden shake roof of my house.  But when it comes to being able to pin-point the noise of the various cracks and creaks of my body, I will admit that perhaps my mind and hearing drift away without acknowledging the obvious.

            I met a woman the other day and somehow we got on the subject of our various aches and pains.  She told me that she knew someone that each morning did an inventory of just what part of their body was working. They checked each organ and everything else. I don’t know whether or not it was helping them, keeping them sane or simply just a ideal way of figuring out whether they were still alive or not.  It seems a very good reason for taking inventory if you are in doubt of getting up, getting dressed after standing in front of your closet with the impossible decisions of what to wear for the day and heading out to greet the day because one never knows with the coming possible zombie apocalypse. You just might want to roll back over and go back to sleep that is if you are able. 

            I have found that once I have discovered the pain or discomfort of a part of my body, I will toss and turn in my bed as I begin wondering not only what I might have done the day before, or weeks long past or years beyond memory or is it simply a matter of age?  Yes, I said it.  Age. Could it be that I am getting older?  Well, thank heavens for that.  Really, when you think about it, the chances of reaching any age beyond yesterday is a miracle.

            When I was younger, I had numerous falls out of several wonderful tall cottonwood trees that I had climbed just because I could. Trees that you could hide in among the branches covered with leaves reaching out to the blue sky of summer. There were large branches on which to perch myself enabling me to view the world below as well as the world in the tree I was in. I like the life on the tree, little black ants scurrying along the wooden ash toned bark of the branches, the leaves rustling and moving in the wind.  I never thought that my way of life would have consequences later in life.  To tell the truth, I really did not even think about the next moment or next day.  I was simply there, in the tree after all, where else did I need to be?

            But now, I am older. I am discovering the errors of my youth.  Just perhaps, I should not have had attempted to place the little yellow chick back up into the loft with its mother hen. It earned me a nice backward fall off the ladder onto the dirt below.  I did manage to fling the chick into loft with the straw, the little brown hen and the rest of her brood of cute yellow fuzzy chicks.

            Perhaps, riding double on the horse with a friend was a bad idea since there had been some people hunting pheasants nearby. The guns they fired close to us spooked the horse causing it to buck. My friend ended taking me with her as she flew off the back of the horse. We tumbled to the hard dusty ground complete with cactus scattered here and there.  We missed the cactus but not the hospital. 

            There were a lot of choices that earned me many a serious fall, mostly from the trees that I just could not seem to avoid climbing.  I don’t climb a tree anymore but I do admit that I will go up to share its space, asking the guardian if I can hug it.  Meanwhile, I will hang out in the tub in the suds with my aches and pains.  I will worry about what will be aching on me on another day, leaving me to wonder if my knee, finger or ankle will be talking back.