Ordinary Glory

It's possible I've written about this before ... tough.

When I was a kid and would declare my boredom to my mom, her invariable reply was Read a book. To which my reply was (and remains) unprintable.

Not that I would actually ever say anything unprintable (or unspeakable) to either of my parents; that was unthinkable in the late 1940s and 1950s, at least in our household. Keep dark words in dark places--that was my boyhood principle (not that I had a lot of principles, mind you).

Reading a book, through much of my boyhood, was not all that unpleasant. I loved going to our lovely Carnegie Library in Enid, Okla. (razed by Clueless Ones in 1972), loved going home with a pile of books, most of which were about cowboys, mountain men, the Alamo, and baseball players. I would read them in bed--or when I was sick--or when it was raining or cold or I was otherwise without physical option.

Boredom, of course, arises from the ordinary. The usual. The expected. The habitual. The ... you know.

But even in boyhood I knew--at times--that there was something glorious about the ordinary. For example, I wasn't crazy about going to school--until I was sick for a few days and could not go, and all I could do was lie in bed and groan and wait for the Dr. to come (yes, I lived in the days of house calls) and give me (I hoped) pills or (I dreaded) a shot. (I'm still not fond of the latter.)

Then--after a few housebound days--school looked like Brigadoon to me. I couldn't wait to get back to Miss Hula's class and circle nouns on her endless supply of worksheets.

This phenomenon--being bored, realizing later the wonders of the ordinary--has continued to appear throughout my life.

When I was jogging most every day, for example (4-6 miles), I didn't exactly love it. Much of the time I dreaded it. Until I couldn't do it.

In the early 1990s I injured my left knee on a hike in Alaska, and it was so bad I didn't think I would ever be able to run again. And suddenly I missed it, horribly. And when--after a few weeks--I was able to get back at it (slowly, slowly), I actually looked forward to my afternoon runs.

Until I didn't.

Now, I can no longer run for a variety of reasons (knees, ankles, persistent dizziness (thank you, blood-pressure meds!)), but I've ... adjusted. And I go to a local health club and do some other things--ride an exercise bike, walk laps around the indoor track, pull on the rowing machine, do some curls with some weights ...

And I dread it, every day.

Until I can't do it. Last spring, I had some severe bouts of vertigo and actually passed out in a health-club shower. EMS ride to the ER, etc.

And then, slowly, I was able to go back to it. Couldn't wait for that to happen.

But now I dread it again ... every afternoon ... out to the club ... sit on that bike that goes nowhere and pedal myself into a soak ...

But here's the dark knowledge that lies, most of the time, below consciousness (where I shove it when it dares to emerge): If I live long enough, the time will come when I can do none of the physical things I've both loved and hated. Both my parents ended up with walkers, then wheelchairs. If I live as long as they do, I'll no doubt find myself in that device as well.

And if I don't live that long? Chances are that my cancer--now in my bones--will put me down. And I will lie there, dreaming of the days I ran ten miles, and hiked the Chilkoot Trail, and rode the exercise bike till I was a Wet Mess, and ... didn't I just love it! All the time!

I will look back at all that Ordinary Glory, and I will briefly grieve.

And then I will reach over, I hope, and pick a book, which, as my mother knew decades ago, is yet another glory that has the power to transport, to erase the present, however grim it may be. Boredom, like a cowardly burglar, flees from a book with pathetic haste.

She was right about so many things, my mom. It's taken me only a lifetime to realize it.