Mind and Body

Aloha everyone from glorious Kona, Hawaii, where I have the privilege to be this week. This video was made with a (real!) spectacular ocean view, not your Zoom perfect fake one!

Being on vacation clears the head at least to some extent from the overcrowding of the “usual” thoughts and even coming back to a place I have been at least 50 times, I notice different things: a different flower or bird, a new and exotic food…and I think more freely and further outside of the workday “box.”

Travel and jet lag has never seemed strenuous, nor has dramatic change of time zones… until now. This old body is not the same as it always was. Travel also invites the traveler to see many different bodies both en route to and at the destination. Here in Hawaii, partly due to weather, and partly due to culture, one sees a lot of skin, much of it tattooed, and of unabashedly all shapes and sizes. There does not seem to be the kind of body shame, “fat”-phobia or obsessive thinness. Well perhaps in Waikiki of “Surfin’ Safari” fame, (for those of us who are old enough,) where I have never been.

In this brief video, I ponder about disability, weight, aging and the ways I find myself feeling different and thinking about different things. Age obviously is inevitable and is in fact a privilege! Perhaps we can enter into it informed, even prepared. But as with many other things, it is process, and there is no precise recipe.

Let’s break taboo, speak openly about how rapidly we march through life. Body changes and identity, like neurons, continue to advance through the lifetime. In this week’s video, we take a rudimentary look at body, culture and attitude.