There are three of them … big fellows.  They sit on a road near my local Walmart.  I have to slow down to just about nothing or else I’ll bounce my dear Ruby to the sky.  My body feels the static, the disruption of flow, just how unnatural it is.  I want to feel the smoothest dance steps with my partner rather than an ordeal of stepping on each other’s feet.

Long ago, I was assisting a personal development teacher in her residential course.  On day we were out for a hike – lovely woodlands and fields.  We came to the top of the hill and the teacher asked me to go ahead, down to the base, and welcome the folks when they arrived.  The downhill was loose bits of rock, known as scree – slippery stuff.  As people came down, I lifted my arms to slow their descent, touching a few of them as I broke their momentum.  “Safety first,” I thought.  I thought wrong.  Momentum is a beautiful thing.  The body loves it.  The body does not like some external force slowing it down.  It’s unnatural.

In another year, my dear wife Jody and I were in Mexico.  One afternoon we explored the village of Playa del Carmen on the Mayan Riviera.  On one street, there was a series of small shops nudged against each other.  Jody went into one, and I entered its neighbour.  A good vacation is full of flow, and I was feeling it.  The Mexicans laughed a lot, and I laughed with them.  I felt free – nothing holding me back.  And so … I sang opera in that little stall full of tourists and locals.  I sang opera loud.  Some folks smiled, others just stared.  I didn’t mind.  Verdi was there for the expressing.  Jody came rushing in.  Next door she had realized “That’s my husband!”  Gaping at my grand gestures and somewhat grand voice, she shook her head and grinned.

The bottom line:  I much prefer entertaining folks to bracing them against gravity.  It’s far more fun.

So what will I do tomorrow?