(HOST) Learning to walk is one of the toughest challenges we face when we’re young, and, as Tom Slayton recently discovered, it isn’t easy at any age.
(SLAYTON) The great Japanese haiku poet, Matsuo Basho, had it about right. He wrote that, as we age, we find ourselves "…leading a tired horse into the years."
I know just what he meant. As I forge through my 60s, I am learning to walk. Again. This old horse is working hard to get back into the mountains.
The first part of my recovery from hip replacement surgery seemed quick and relatively easy. The incision healed, my bones grew around the new titanium hip, and I was able to walk – sort of: first with a walker; then with crutches; and, eventually, a cane.
But several years of limping along on an arthritic hip had taken their toll. Muscles had weakened, and whenever I tried to walk without the cane, I listed to one side like a drunken sailor. The muscles in my hips and legs were just too weak, and caneless I lurched from place to place like the walking dead.
I’m not alone in all of this, of course. Lately it seems as though half my friends and relatives are either stumping around or sporting new parts!
I used my cane for weeks, then months, and began a program of rigorous physical therapy.
But I still hopped and lurched and tilted whenever I set the cane aside. That was when I realized I was going to have to learn to walk, all over again.
It was, frankly, hard work: leg lifts, then weighted leg lifts, stretches, elastic band exercises, and more. I had no idea that regaining my strength would take so long or require such effort. I kept at it – not, God knows, because I have any particular self-discipline. Quite the contrary. But I knew that if I didn’t work hard at recovering, I might never get back to the mountains and rivers that I love. That kept me motivated as I worked, and learned.
I learned, first of all, what a complex thing walking actually is. It involves many muscles I didn’t even know I had! I also learned profound respect for that miraculously complex collection of systems – muscles, bones, nerves, plumbing, and so on – that we call our bodies. I spent weeks, for example, building up a single weakened muscle on my right hip. Its function, I learned, is to hold up the left hip, so the left leg can stride forward. Then, to avoid tilting, I had to learn to put my right foot straight ahead while holding my upper body upright. I had to pay close attention to every step I took, to be really mindful.
And, gradually, I learned to walk. The simple act of walking actually turned out to be a very complex thing. And mastering it made me very happy. With time, practice, and a lot more leg lifts and stretches, I have begun to walk straight and caneless – without limping or lurching.
The old horse is moving again. The mountains and rivers are calling.