Weekly Scribbling #85. We're given this quote as food for thought: "Take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live in. Most of us no doubt wish we'd started earlier! Submitted to Poets and Storytellers United, September 1, 2021
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COUNT BLESSINGS
Exercise. Nutrition. Words to live by so easily ignored in the fast pace of life today. I confess to smoking for over 50 years before I got enough smarts to quit. How I rue the decision to start smoking, but when I was a teen it was the cool and adult thing to do. I’m reminded of the words of my dentist when he told me I’d have to have a tooth extracted and I had reminded him he’d promised me I’d go to my grave with my own teeth. “Yes”, he responded, “but I didn’t know you were going to live so long”!
Exercise now is limited to a few walks from my computer to the bathroom and back. Nutrition is limited to what I can chew comfortably with the few teeth I have left. Oh (sigh) my dentist and I are both surprised that this old body has served me well for all these 87 years. Thankfully, I still have my wits about me. I count blessings daily.
Older now, smarter
wishing I had been
a smarter starter
Never knew you smoked for 50+ years!! But I do know ~~ you have all your wits about you and you use them ~~ quite cleverly.
ReplyDeleteDear Bev, we have a lot in common! 48 years of smoking for me, until I got smart enough to stop (and finally found the method that worked for me, the brilliant Smokenders course). Like you, I started in my teens, for the same reasons.
ReplyDeleteMy exercise at present is about the same as yours! But some physiotherapists did give me a nice little workout routine a few years ago, both easy and effective, which I have let lapse. Magaly's prompt, and the conversations we're having around it, are spurring me on to revive it.
Like you, I am glad that the old brain is still functioning well! I hope I'm (still) as smart and savvy as you when i"m 87!
Your wits is my favorite bit about you. I hope that when I'm grow up, my brain will be as awesome as yours and Rosemary's. Goodness knows my body won't be. And let's not even start talking about teeth. A few of mine started jumping ship before I was 30! Still, like you, I count my blessings every single day. I'm chronically ill, but I still have energy to write and exercise and write about it. We are lucky! Even if chewing hard candy is just a dream, lol!
ReplyDeleteConfession!! We are same generation, rural growing up, I quit smoking at about age 42 with six more months chewing and dipping until I got tired of finding places to spit on campus.
ReplyDeleteMy BDay is October 30 when I become 88. Walking? I try to walk 30 minutes five times a week, Mrs. Jim's dr. told her the same thing.
I didn't read of your travels--we've been to all 50 states and 75-78 countries, all oceans and continents except Antarctica.
We're about to downsize like yours sounds?
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Your marbles are shiny and sharp...Good for you !
ReplyDeleteI have nothing to impart but my awe-struck gaze, reverence and respect ❤️
ReplyDeleteAnd we, we get to read your fine wok (including this wonderful haibun), count that as a blessing as well. This former smoker (also half a century), who quit 6 years back still occasionally craves but, fortunately, it passes more quickly now,
ReplyDeleteWrite on, Sister!
Love your haibun, Bev! You are 10 years my senior but your write is always of the times, young and healthy! Hank used to smoke late teens and twenties but managed to quit early thirties.
ReplyDeleteHank
Madame, I tip my hat in honor of your wits and aspire to be able to say the same about mine when I am that old.
ReplyDeleteYour wit has no age.
ReplyDelete