Doing the hard stuff

 People who give advice to older people (and there are dozens of these advice-givers!) all say that in order to keep our brains healthy and functioning, we need to take on challenging tasks. Here in the retirement community, the staff makes available crossword puzzles, sudoku, and other games that can be challenging, along with all sorts of educational programs.

And not just our minds, we also need to challenge our bodies to keep them flexible, strong, and out of trouble for as long as possible.

And we need to stretch and engage in new activities. That’s the formula: New+Hard. Or at least hard enough. For our minds and for our bodies.

I’m taking this seriously and adopting two hard tasks, activities that are causing me to stretch. Also causing me to doubt myself, to wonder if I’m crazy. I probably am, but I accepted that about me long ago.

I’ll start with the physical. With my vestibular migraine condition, any physical activity makes me dizzy. So for the last half-year I have stopped exercising, except for walking outdoors, which I do slowly and with frequent stops. But that’s not enough. While exercise makes me dizzy, it doesn’t harm me. And the rest of my body wants me to do more. I’m worried that I’m deteriorating, which only means growing old faster. So I’m making some changes, doing some new stuff.

I’ve joined a class called “Sit and Be Fit.” It sounds embarrassingly easy, so I’ve resisted. But I think it will be a good way to gently work my way back into regular exercise. I’ve discovered that it’s actually somewhat challenging. I’m moving my arms and legs, swiveling my neck, and even stretching my fingers. Plus, it’s with a fun group of people. That’s part of a good exercise program. It’s good, but not too challenging.

I’ve joined another exercise group that is challenging. I’m in a beginning Tai Chi class. I always admired people who do Tai Chi. Slow and graceful, it seems like underwater dancing and meditation rolled into one. But can I do it? I’m not sure I’m physically graceful enough.

Doubts aside, I’ve joined the beginner’s class and we’re learning the “mother forms”—how to raise and lower our arms, how to move around an imaginary beach ball, how to move to the side and back, how to coordinate arms and legs and breathing as we slowly walk forward. Coordination, balance, and movement. And breathing in at the right time, breathing out at the right time. I’m border-line dyslexic and mix up things like right/left and anything involved in bodily coordination, so I’m finding this challenging. I’m trying to squelch any embarrassment at how I look to others as I awkwardly try to follow the leader. I’m hoping that with enough repetitions, my body memory will kick in and I’ll start having fun.

This is my new bodily challenge and I plan to stick with it. (But check with me in a month.)

(Aside: I met my friend Marshall last week and told him I was trying Tai Chi. He smiled and told me he much preferred Chai Tea. Now I tend to mix up the terms, but it helps to laugh when you’re doing hard stuff.)

Now for the mind. I read that one good exercise for the mind is learning a new language. I love languages and have had the chance to learn several, including biblical Greek and Hebrew back in my seminary days. I was pretty good at it, but then jobs, and kids, and real life kicked in and I did not keep up my biblical language skills. The cliché, “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” is usually true.

I certainly lost my Hebrew skills, but I retained enough Greek to use the exegetical tools in Bible study. But at a very basic level. For a long time, I’ve wished I had kept it up to the level I could again read the New Testament in Greek. It seemed too ambitious a dream and I’ve let it go.

Until now. I met a resident here in the retirement community who was (and is) a classical Greek scholar. We had a very enthusiastic conversation over lunch and I felt motivated to re-learn biblical Greek. It’s amazing what one fortuitous encounter can do.

It’s certainly a little-by-little project. I got out my Greek Bible, the lexicons, and grammar books, and arranged them on the shelf above my desk. I discovered an online resource in archives.com that gives me access to the same beginning Greek textbook I used in seminary. The familiarity helps. I’m going through the text lesson by lesson, starting with the Greek alphabet. Along with the text, I’m focusing on particular passages in the New Testament, re-learning to read them.

I hadn’t remembered how complicated Greek was, or how many irregular verbs existed. I’m impressed at what a smart young woman I must have been to have learned all that. Now it’s not so quick or easy. I struggle to memorize verb tenses and vocabulary words. At least now no professor is going to test me or push me to learn faster. I have to encourage myself with going slowly and enjoying the journey.

And I do enjoy it. I’m having fun. And hopefully stretching my mind and making new brain cells.

I’d better bring this to a close. It’s almost time for my Chai Tea class.