Physical Therapy

It is nearly impossible to arrive at the age of sixty-one without acquiring those things we lump together in the category of “nagging injuries.”

Mine tend to center around my back.

In my forties I undertook the task of getting back into shape through long distance running (many readers will think right about now-- say no more). I was determined to lose weight and regain the muscle tone I once had, and I was successful. I worked my way up to about fifteen miles a week, and at the same time worked weekends as a volunteer soccer referee where I routinely ran another five or six miles on each Saturday. I also played full court basketball on Sundays.

The pounds fell off and muscle tone returned, but I paid the price of running daily on concrete sidewalks and paved roads. After about five years I injured my lower back in some way that no doctor can adequately diagnose other than to say, “You’re back is worn out.”

Of course, now that I am once again a father of infants, I realize it’s not just my back that’s worn out.

Taking care of young children is tough at any age, but after six decades of wear and tear, my body is sending me some pretty clear messages, like, “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

Being a parent of infants requires a whole new set of physical motions: rocking, swaying, jiggling, nudging, and swinging; not to mention trudging, plodding and staggering, usually out of bed at 2:47 a.m. because the rocking and swaying you did at 1:56 a.m. was ineffective—again.

I have also resurrected some old skills: cuddling, cooing, humming, hissing, shushing, warmly reassuring, desperately begging and weeping uncontrollably like a big old girl.

But something else has happened—my back doesn’t hurt as much.

Now, it could be the occasional visits to the physical therapy clinic, when I remember to go between feedings and changings. But I don’t think an hour a week of fitting odd contraptions on my feet that allow me to “do the skating thing” (in the words of the nineteen-year old assistant-assistant therapist girl) are really the reasons for the improvement.

Spending time with new lives has a way of renewing more than just old parenting skills. Maybe it’s just a matter of focusing my attention on someone else with a greater need; maybe it’s the forced hours of relaxation where I must adopt a tranquil attitude as a means of self-defense—or something else intangible.

As a teacher of high school students for twenty years I have noticed that I seem to be generally less of an “old codger” than some of my contemporaries—although by using the term, “old codger” I may have to relinquish that claim—and I have often guessed it was because of my daily interaction with those who are still a few years away from codgerdom. Hanging out with kids who laugh at the idea of having a land line, and who discuss music groups like Incubus in the same breath as The Doors under the category of "those old guys," may keep the trappings of old age at bay a little longer.

So maybe I am getting something in return for my rocking, swaying and uncontrollable weeping; something restorative that physical therapy doesn’t offer.