Routines

Ain't misbehaving this morning. I rubbed the anti-inflammatory Diclofenac gel into my bad knee, cycled for fifteen minutes on the stationary bike and then did floor exercises to build up the musculature below and above the arthritic knee. Yes, I’m advertising myself as a model nonagenarian.  But don’t get the wrong idea.

This is rare. I am usually loath to disturb my routine of creative lassitude. I think about going on the bike but I’m told that doesn’t count. And the thought of enduring exercise with short term pain and no immediate benefit never had much allure.

The key word is routine. I can’t think of any ritualized behavior I have adapted since I started brushing my teeth. The well-ordered life is a transient state. Bring me a modicum of disarray. Something unexpected is likely to emerge. I might even return to my bike.

Habit is the thief of meaning, so said some sage. The sameness of daily activities in the same sequence robs one of creative vitality. First this and then that feels prescribed to me. I want the next act to grow organically out of the small chaos called life.   

I gladly make room for digressions. On my way to the kitchen I spotted a pair of scissors which reminded me of cut flowers and how they sprung to life listening to the music of Dave Brubeck and his signature song, Take Five, written by Paul Desmond.

Constancy, it seems to me, is an illusion and tradition the illusion of permanence. To be alive is to be in the act of. And that includes ample time for in-dwelling. As Wendell Berry reminds us it is when the stream is impeded that the real work begins. It is in this debris of life we live and we make something of it.  

I am aware that some of my favorite people cherish their rituals. I respect their discipline and honor the meaning it has for them. I almost envy them. Yet at the same time I know it is not my path up the mountain. 

Am I going through life winging it? I like the idea of having wings but I don't think so. I sense an inner order with its own clock, values, resistance, creative bursts and baggage along with my heart's chamber music. And all of it, I would like to think, is ever evolving,

Let it be known I left this page after the fourth paragraph and pedaled from Patagonia to Prudhoe Bay on my stationary bike. It only took me 15 minutes.