TMI or Need To Know? Random Musings

I'm "injured" right now in that a deep bone bruise or possibly a stress fracture in my right heel has led to my taking two weeks off from martial arts except for a few kendo things I've done from a kneeling position. The only exercise I'm supposed to be doing is swimming. I'd forgotten what a good workout swimming can be. Or perhaps I repressed it since swimming is also possibly the most boring exercise imaginable, especially if you're trying to keep track of how many laps you've swum and can't indulge in a stream of consciousness.

Since I'm not doing martial arts much right now, I don't have to be taking off and putting on the two necklaces I wear for sentimental reasons. One is a 50 kronur Icelandic coin. On the front is a shore crab, fitting in that my astrological sign is Cancer. The back,which is the same on all Icelandic coins, has tiny pictures of the four guardian spirits of Iceland. I am not sure why I do it, but I wear the coin with the back's guardian spirits facing out and the shore crab against my skin. The other necklace is the one my father wore and removed only when absolutely necessary as when he was having an MRI exam. It's his gold baby ring, which he never knew existed until his mother sent it to him many years after he'd grown up and left home. Since it obviously wouldn't fit any of his adult fingers, he put it on a gold chain. When I touch it, which is often, putting my fingers on the ring puts my palm over my heart, which I think is fitting since that's where I carry lots of my memories of my dad.

Younger son turns 21 in less than a week, followed by the husband's turning 60 four days after that. I'm trying not to let these two milestones make me feel old. It is sobering, though, to realize that I've lived more than half the life I will have were "old age" to be my eventual cause of death. I don't feel as if I'm 54, though I'm not sure what 54 should feel like. I've been told that I don't look 54, though again I'm not sure what 54 should look like. I admit that there are times when I observe the teen and twenty-somethings with whom I do martial arts and feel not only the aches of a 54-year-old body but also the experiences of a 54-year-old life. There is a wisdom to being older that I did not recognize before I arrived here.

The last good night's sleep I had, "good" in that it was deep enough and long enough and I woke up incredibly refreshed, was aboard a junk in Halong Bay, Vietnam. The rocking of the boat and the gentle slapping of the water on the hull were like a lullaby. Earlier this year, there was a night-time fire on one of the Halong Bay tourist junks, and several Americans were among the fatalities. News reports said that they did not awaken in time to escape before the boat sank. Had this been our boat on our night aboard, I would like to think that I would have been one of the survivors, but I honestly doubt it. I guess it is possible to sleep too well.