Eagle Watching

I started early this morning to WorkSource, as they began a new "Stress Management" activity, and I went to that back to back with the Job Club. Both were rewarding. Someone mentioned walking down at Ruston Way, at the waterfront, so I decided to go there after I left WorkSource.

Ruston way was beautiful, in a subdued, rainy day sort of way. In a good mood after my dose of stress management, I thought, "why don't I play tourist and just stroll?" Then it hit me, one of the biggest factors in my resistance to exercise, and my resistance to a lot of activities in life.

Competition.

For some reason when I used to walk on Ruston Way, I felt some sort of inner competition, that I had to measure how far and how fast I walked, for it to have value. I had this unrealistic idea in my mind that I would lose weight by walking, when in reality, one merely keeps from physically deteriorating by walking. And when I view any activity as exercise, I also become self-conscious about it. Walking with anyone else, since almost everyone I know is more physically fit than I am, has an element of competition to it in my mind, regardless of how courteous or pleasant the other person/s is about the disparity in our abilities. There is no way not to feel self-conscious and embarrassed.

Going for a pleasant stroll is so much nicer.

When I returned to my car, I saw a bald eagle fly in to the area to fish. I found a park bench and watched for perhaps twenty minutes. I don't see eagles just any time. There wasn't much to see, as the eagle landed on the top of a piling and endured the harassment of first crows, then a seagull. He didn't even hunch down, as the smaller birds swooped and dove and called at him. Finally it began to rain, and I went to sit in my car.

A real downpour, listening to the rain on the roof, watching the eagle, and interior of the car fogging up. I took a call from my husband in Boston, who claims [all evidence to the contrary] that he is improving, the edema is down, he is not bothered by nausea, no, he has not been sleepy, and there is no [cough, cough] coughing. And now he believes that the property from which he was evicted in December is about to be given back to him.

The rain stopped and I drove away. Was it a coincidence that, just as I drove off, the eagle spread his great wings and headed out along the water? The rain was over. Time for both of us to go.