Imagine a supreme being seated on soft clouds in the sky, or perhaps aliens circling the planet in spaceships. Or even an ancient earthly creature, so in tune with energy that they can witness, in a quantum physical manner, how other life forms expend themselves. If such things could be, I like to think that they study us humans and note our patterns. I would be one of the humans who move around alot, who leaves their nightly resting place for daily walkabouts and stretches. I’ve always been this way: As family legend has it, I tried to walk before I was two weeks old and decades later, I haven’t stopped moving.

Fortuitously, I grew up in a town with the official nickname “Home of Champions.” It celebrated feats of strength by Irish firefighters a century earlier, and reflects a continuing obsession with sports. The importance of fitness was hammered into us, and school phys-ed was serious business. We flailed around to the Chicken Fat song, endured punishing games of crab soccer and kickball, and pushed ourselves to the limit during Presidential Fitness tests like the 50-yard dash and long jump. I was fully up for this. I was strong, competitive, and confident in my abilities. I drank raw eggs like Rocky Balboa, and wore Sears toughskin jeans with the extra thick knees. I used my Barbie dolls as bats. I took part in every free program parks and recs offered, and my parents didn’t hold me back from full-contact sports, even though it was unusual for girls to play football with boys and land at the bottom of a scrimmage pile. Which I did, repeatedly. Dirty hands, snarled hair, ripped clothes, scraped knees, and bruises were de rigueur until junior high. 

I particularly loved tennis and baseball. We siblings formed a tennis dynasty, or so I imagined, and dominated at least one year’s town tournaments. I still have a trophy from when I won the title, defeating my younger sister, who is now as good as you can get at tennis before becoming a pro. But I loved baseball even more. I was the first girl all-star in our coed farm league, and I idolized Babe Didrikson. I dreamed of being the first female major league baseball player. Every spring I could barely contain my excitement as I oiled my mitt with neatsfoot oil, and threw a ball with any willing friend to build up my arm. The dream died when girls were denied tryouts for the high school baseball team. I defaulted to women’s softball, where I was horribly coached, and sorely wished I’d chosen tennis as my spring sport. I know now that I’m too small to have competed with men in professional baseball, but I wish I’d had a fair shot at it.

Throughout high school and during summer breaks from college, I biked everywhere. I didn’t have a car, so I biked to work, to friends’ homes, along back roads and lakes. In graduate school I walked the steep paths of Ithaca, NY to my classes, and took up bodybuilding and aerobics. After moving to western North Carolina, I got my workouts at our farm. We lived on a steep hillside, and every chore involved walking or running on a slope. I carted wheelbarrows of pumpkins and potatoes, split and stacked firewood, hauled fence posts and buckets of water, and chased after goats and sheep at shearing time. When free of these chores, I enjoyed hiking and yoga.

Directly after moving from the farm and into Asheville, I signed up for evening dance classes at the university. I went alone and was partnered with strangers. While being instructed on the tango, we were told to press our pelvises together, and stay almost locked as we moved across the dance floor. “If you’re not embarrassed, you’re not doing it right!” our instructor shouted, as we blushed, excused ourselves for being so familiar, and carried on. I also took a belly dancing class and participated in a public recital I didn’t know was coming. I have never laughed so hard because we were so bad at it, though we gave it our all.

Soon after separating from my husband, I unearthed my tennis racket, set aside for decades, and batted balls against the bricked side of a nearby grocery store, something I used to do against the side of our elementary school when I was bored as a kid. Whack, whack, whack. It was a good release! I increased my yoga classes to three times a week, and unwrinkled my bunched up suffering soul by unrolling my body over a mat and breathing deeply. These much happier days, I’m an avid morning walker, and continue to take yoga and pilates classes. I also hike whenever my work schedule can allow an afternoon off to get into the woods.

I’m not strong like I was. I’ve worn my body down in places. The farm work was more than I could handle and I hurt my back. Years of shelving books while a bookseller strained my wrists and hands. A free and ill-advised ropes class contributed to a frozen shoulder. I feel the wear and tear in my joints, hear the crepitus in my spine, and am noticeably weaker in my upper body. Three years of a pandemic, along with a sedentary job, have also taken a toll. There are days I feel like the tin man, and my joints need oiling lest they creak even more loudly. 

The supreme being, the circling aliens, and the ancient earthly creature may have shifted their attention to other things, no longer interested in humans who look at their schedules for opportunities to stroll and stretch, to quiet their fevered minds through movement. We are each on our path, and my need to move is deeply personal, perhaps even genetic, as I reflect on my family’s love of sports. I’m grateful that this body, that sought to get up and walk before it was even ready, still serves me well, and I hope that I can keep it in motion for many years to come.