Dispatches from elsewhere
Early this morning I was walking down the street. About 40 ft. in front of me was an elderly lady with a walker. It started to get a bit windy out, and the wind knocked her hat off of her walker. It started blowing back my way and then into the street, a pretty major thoroughfare with a good bit of traffic. I quickly assessed wind, hat, and traffic trajectories and was able to dart into the street and retrieve it without any harm to me or to the hat. She was very grateful and we ended up walking and talking for a bit. She asked if I was in school, and I explained that no, I was 35, which surprised her (for some reason lots of people lately have been telling me I look much younger than I am. Go figure.). But then I explained how I was thinking about going back to school for something like physical therapy. She proceeded to tell me about how she’s been doing PT for a while now. Originally she did it to help treat some vertigo problems she was having, but since it had the nice side effect of improving her bone density and cholesterol, she keeps doing it as part of a general wellness program even though her vertigo problems have long since subsided. Hearing stuff like that makes me very happy and all the more glad that I’m looking to pursue careers that really help make positive changes in people’s lives.
Remember how a while back I was saying that if you quit your job to find yourself, you don’t really need to do any travelling to do so? Well, maybe I was the slightest bit wrong. I’m in Philly right now. I’ve been spending much of the past few weeks at home, and it started making me stir crazy. I’ve never paid this city a proper visit, so it’s nice throwing myself in unfamiliar territory for a few days for a change of pace.
I went to the Mütter Museum this morning. Aside from the regular exhibits of skulls with bullet holes in them, Siamese twin fetuses in formaldehyde, and other medical curiosities, they have an exhibit of artwork at the moment that explores the “psychology of our biological existence,” as they say. One of the more interesting things I found at the exhibit was that each of the different areas had a sign with a quote from a writer about our bodies. There were lots of great quotes, but one that really stood out for me was:
“Our bodies are our gardens – our wills are our gardeners.” ~William Shakespeare
This one really resonated with me as it perfectly captures how I’ve been feeling about my own body over the past year, and it touches upon much of what I’ll need to be thinking about when I start training clients and find myself trying to help them get past those tricky hurdles of motivation, self-doubt, etc.
Complete non sequitur: I’m staying this totally adorable art deco hotel that reminds me of several video games I’ve played over the years and the people who work here are insanely friendly and…whoa even the lamps are art deco. I didn’t pick up on that until just now. Oh my god, I just want to hug this hotel.
I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past couple of days and it’s been a wonderful opportunity to continue recalibrating/realigning my life. No major changes or anything, but a great chance to tie up loose ends inside my head and stuff like that. I see now how transplanting to a different location, even if only for a couple of days, is a great way to get one’s mind to think outside its default path.
