Ritual

I'm guessing we all have a ritual with the exercising rigamarole.

This is mine.

When evening begins to fall and the air turns cool, I go across the street to the high school. There is a place next to the building, a dirt path, in the middle of a bunch of trees, quiet and private, with a picnic table.

I set my list of exercises, water bottle, beloved jump rope, cell phone (in case of heart attack..ha ha...) on the table and then I stretch. Knee stretches...every which way. Hip stretches (they also ache). And then I stop and look for a four leaf clover. An old habit of mine. I often find one.

Today I found one right away.

I jump. I stop every 50 or so jumps and make sure my knees are feeling loose and warm. Sometimes I have to stop for a while and catch my breath. Every 50 I make a mark in the dirt.

When my knees start hurt, I get these little sharp pains, then I take a longer break. I try to jump a bit more but if I get a really strong pain - I stop completely and stretch more.

Then I go through the exercises. I use the picnic table for the incline thing and triceps thing (had to come inside for that double chair thing). When I'm done I lay on the picnic bench and relax.

As I was doing the exercises I kept finding more leaf clovers.

When I lay on the bench I looked at my clovers. My luck. I thought - We make our own luck. We find it if we look for it. We make our own bodies if we try.

So my global comrades...we're making our own luck because we're looking, pushing, pulling, leaping and reaching for it.