Back Flip

When I was a little girl, I loved to do what today would be called gymnastics, except back then, there weren't any lessons or trainers or facilities full of equipment. I was reduced to climbing up the molding around the arch that separated our dining room from the living room and doing somersaults down the front lawn. And back bends.

Ah yes, I could bend over backwards and touch the floor behind me. Now that athletic females - including my own granddaughters - are crowding the sports facilites, I've longed to do those back bends, flips and jumps on a trampoline. Yesterday, I got my chance at a setup at the local Mall.

I was there to give the world's greatest grandchildren a chance to have their flying moment, but when I got there, I wasn't 64 anymore. I was 14 and my body could do anything and my muscles and health problems didn't exist. What was I saving myself for?

As they strapped me into the harness, I wasn't nervous, just thtrilled. At last I was going to get a chance to break the gravity of earth and soar effortlessly through the air. I was giddy. I jumped...and jumped again...and soon I was higher than the second story of the building. I felt free and happy and very young.

And the back flip? A bit different from a back bend, but as I brought my knees up to my chest and dropped my head back, it suddenly happened. I was over! I had done it - up, back and over. I mentally crossed off another wish on my Bucket List of Life.

The moral of the story? Do it now. Whatever it is that will give you pleasure and allow you to experience life to its fullest, give it a try. I might have hurt myself as I bounced up and down and rolled my arms in a 360 degree arc, but I've put up with a lot of pain doing things that were a whole lot less fun. The "what if's" are a cautious way to live life, but there's a lot left on the table at the end. I think the "why not's? allow us to feel and experience the potential within.

T.S. Eliot wrote about J. Alfred Prufrock who measured out his life "in coffee spoons." Suppose we chose to fill a tea cup or even a Big Gulp instead? I don't want to reach the end of my days, how few or many that they may be, and say "I wish I had...". I want to be able to look God in the eye and say "thank you - how good it was!"