Age and Disintegration

Age and disintegration

What a nasty title this one is, not quite 55 and the decay is obvious. For me age deters my ability to walk long distances, and travel through Europe brings with it more reason to walk long distances than I ever had while living in the US. For one thing public transport is good, therefore travelers can get to their destination without the worry or stress of navigating (first on one side of the road and then on the other) in strange locals with different driving rules. We are now in Budapest, and I find that because we did not rent a car I feel more like a tourist than I ever do when I am trying to drive.

But with the joys of public transport comes the extra miles of walking – from where it lets you off to the museum or public site and back again. Not to mention getting lost, as we did yesterday in Budapest. Who would have thought that one of their famous shopping districts, along the Riva U. would be echoed by a major thoroughfare north in the city Riva UT? This was doubled by the difficulties of changing from one map, scaled very close, to one scaled to cover the whole city. Presto! We walked an extra mile or two. One mile took us to where we discovered the Budapest public housing area and another took us back to where we could catch the metro.

Thank heavens that in Budapest we finish each long day of walking with the baths. We have now visited two, both Turkish, both very old. In one, women and men are separate except for the swimming pool, in the other one gender or the other is banned except on weekends where everyone wears swim suits. Actually we found that on the women’s side of the Gerheirt baths most women wore suits. The older European women who followed the tradition of nude bathing were the minority with younger Japanese or Chinese women balanced with younger Americans making up the majority.

After getting lost but before the baths I could not take a long striding step, but rather balanced the pain in each leg through smaller steps. After the baths, although not without sensation, I could walk fairly normally. This was sufficient the first day when I took a Tylenol PM, had a good nights sleep and felt fine for the second day. The third day in a row was over the top for my body and even a Tylenol PM did not let me avoid the pain in my hips enough to easily sleep. Nor when I woke this morning am I "good as new."

This condition brings up two thoughts: my Mom and Dad at my age, and what I learned at the yoga conference. My Mom and Dad were comparable to my age now when I was in high school – so I saw things first hand that now translate to an understanding of the body I inherited. Only who was to say I would get the worse parts of both?? From my Dad I got varicose veins and poor joints. I remember him stretching himself out on a counter top in our kitchen, and hobbling around the house after his veins were worked on. From my mother I inherited hormones that lose the ability to regulate hot and cold, therefore always throwing open windows (she would say it was "stuffy in here") and another set of bad joints. Touch wood my hips stay whole, but there you have it.

This leads me to what I learned at the Yoga Conference in the States this fall. Bare in mind that the last time I attended this conference these same teachers (then in their late 40’s and early 50’s) seemed to be saying "Do yoga and it will keep you young forever." This time the message (or was it my ability to hear the message?) changed. Now they are saying (I am hearing) "The body decays – get used to it. If you do yoga the transition is easier."

So it goes.