Hot summer days

It’s hot hot hot out there and I wish I could just stay home, but I have to get to physio for my decrepit back. A couple of years ago, it would have been a pleasant 20-minute walk, but now it’s like a trek across the Sahara. My aging body reacts in strange new ways to the heat. If I change direction, move my head down or to the side, or stop for a red light, I get dizzy and feel like I’m about to faint. If I grab a lamp post or manage to sit down for a couple of minutes, it passes. But what if it happens when I’m crossing the street?

So I’ve learned to walk slowly in the heat, lurching from lamp post to lamp post. I keep my head steady, moving my eyes but not my head as I go along. When I’m about 50 steps from the corner and it looks like the light is going to turn red, I slow down to a crawl. If I start to feel faint, I hang on to something and go up on my toes a few times. The family doctor says that will pump blood up to my head, and it does seem to help.

I feel like I’m made of tissue paper now, one strong gust and I’ll be ripped to pieces. I’m astounded at what it takes to propel this bag of bones down the street: all the exercising at home, determination and persistence, tolerance of pain. I wish I could pass a message to my younger self, the self that used to blow impatiently past those slowpokes on the sidewalk. Give them some respect and some elbow room, I’d say. Those people are tough; they have to be. It’ll be your turn before you know it.