Content to Boogie

Swoosh, I am swept along, atop the white water. The bubble and foam bounce me side to side; up and down. Then I glide like a bird, rushing inshore fast on the power of the wave, I grip the nose of my blue board. The cream sand rushes faster towards me, the wind flows over my wet body, spots of seawater splash my face stinging my eyes. My heart beats, I feel light, flowing, moving effortlessly. The rush of excitement is replaced by the comfort of contentment washing over me.

Beached on the sand, there is a raucous laugh. I look around. It is from me. I have rediscovered the simple thrill of surfing the waves on a boogie or body board. I prefer calling my board coloured with blue and golden a boogie board, it’s how it makes me feel.

I snatch a glance out to sea over the tumbling waves and white water. From the back, the deep green blue is building into light blue curls. Inadequately formed curls for board riders but they are perfect for me. Tucked under my arm I push out through the foam powering into the breaking waves, till finally I’m in position for another ride.

A wave forms, its jaw curls high, the gaping blue mouth is ready to devour me. A thrust with my legs sends me into the top of the wave; with a hard kick and a strong paddle I drag myself along the wave into position to ride its power. The rush of excitement flows over me as I thrust and glide towards the shore.

After several deep breathes, I am ready to go again but I look across the bubbling water. People with grey hair have frowns of concentration and smiles, with their boogie boards pressed against their bodies. Like me they have found the joy of being content with the simple things.

I have been encouraged to progress to surfing. Try the standup paddle board. Why is there always something more?

How often that has arisen. My rediscovered joy of running, includes a speed session, of pace and endurance, with my new found running group.

I am the only one with grey hair. During recovery, with my muscles aching and blue top drenched in sweat my body is acknowledging a brutal session of sustained effort. The discussion turns towards individual goals.

Ultra distance runs, mountain trail runs, marathons and half marathons, multi-distance events. The regular community five-kilometre park run is enough for me. But even I have pushed myself to complete our group’s ten kilometre run.

Why was I not content with the five but instead I had to push on to the ten – to prove to myself I could do once, what I used to do, every week, thirty years ago.

I let myself be convinced to progress to the twelve kilometre bay run, I have three months to prepare. This will be painful, I know I will be sore, and my body will not thank me for the extension.

As I make the ten kilometre course a regular training run, I wrestle with the thought that I should have been content with the shorter distances. If I get through unscathed, I will be satisfied but will I then be content?

I admire people, who want to push themselves, I used to be one of them. I may once again be one of those people. Why else would I meet in the early morning darkness on a deserted oval, like the member of a secret society, for speed sessions with my group if I did not want to feel the satisfaction of pushing myself.

Striving for more, striving for satsifaction but it may not bring happiness. An industry of well-being to help people pursue happiness, whatever that means. There can be a thrill in the simple pleasures and be content with what we have; what we are.

With another speed session complete, I need to cool off. I grab my boogie board, content to lay down in the surf and be carried into shore.

March 21, 2023 0

Life in the Grey Zone

While we’ve been masking, isolating and sanitising our way to dodge around the virus that has targeted us in the grey zone, there have been many other good and interesting events happening in the world.

Here’s a few of the notable happenings in the grey zone that you may have missed over the last few months.

Tea drinkers unite and live longer.

“The black tea drinkers are getting older,” the head of Unilever recently told investors, “They are consuming less,” he said and will soon “start to fall over”.

According to Unilever cups of tea are falling out of vogue with young people. As a result, the firm is struggling to grow its black tea brands in western markets like the UK and the US.

Unilever’s chief financial officer, Graeme Pitkethly, said that although young people do drink tea, it tends to be “quite high-end, expensive products”. Pitkethly was quoted as saying “I drink five or six cups of builder’s tea a day, but unfortunately we are dying at a faster rate than generation Z and millennials are consuming it.”

The consumer goods giant has said that Generation Z and millennial consumers much prefer herbal teas and coffees instead. Over the last two years, demand for black tea has fallen while demand has risen for herbal and cold tea infusions.

Researchers reported young people’s tastes have changed with black teas being seen as too strong, needing sugar or honey to sweeten the tea in turn losing out to herbal teas which were more appealing with floral aromas and they are perceived as healthier.

A legitimate reason perhaps; unlike theories of the rise of Instagram which means that beverages need to make a big impact so that people want to take a photo of their Starbucks Frappe topped with cream.

Like any seasoned tea drinker firmly in the greyzone, the health benefits of tea are easy to find. Researchers at the University of California and Brown University found tea improved eyesight; those who drank at least one cup were 74 per cent less likely to develop glaucoma. Totally practical and appropriate reason to savour a good cuppa.

Leave me comment to let me know if you like a nice cup of tea and how you like your tea.

Grey hair- it’s not because I’m old!

Scientists at Harvard University have shown how stress can speed up the greying process. Biologists found that stress causes nerves involved in the fight-or-flight response to pump out a hormone which wipes out the stem cells used to make hair pigments.

Stress can be considered a form of accelerated ageing. The discovery has raised hopes for treatments that can slow down or even halt normal age-related greying. A breakthrough if you don’t find greying hair appealing!

Perhaps another reason to slow down, de-stress and perhaps forego or delay children who are surely the largest contributor to premature aging.

It’s time to destress – now where’s that nice cup of black tea?

Making news in the zone

Class is always in style

Dame Judi Dench has become British Vogue’s oldest cover star, securing her first front page for the style magazine at the age of 85.

Dench began her acting career in 1959 on television. Over a 60-plus year career she earned her national treasure status, playing roles such as M in the James Bond franchise and as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love, for which she won an Oscar in 1999, aged 64.

Commenting on the couture she wore for the photo shoot, she says, of one outfit. “The cloak I was made to wear! Like five foxes fucking on my back!” she said. “A battered, mangy old cat… A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?”

Who knew gardening was an extreme sport?

Brian May has complained of “relentless pain” after he was taken to hospital following a gardening injury that tore muscles in his buttocks.

Writing on Instagram, the Queen guitarist said: “I managed to rip my gluteus maximus to shreds in a moment of overenthusiastic gardening. So suddenly I find myself in a hospital getting scanned to find out exactly how much I’ve actually damaged myself. Turns out I did a thorough job and I won’t be able to walk for a while or sleep, without a lot of assistance, because the pain is relentless.”

One tough hood.

George Hood, a 62-year-old former US Marine, broke the world planking record with a time of 8hr 15min 15sec, adding an extra 14 minutes to the previous record. Hood had lost his 1hr 20 sec record in 2016 to Mao Weidong, a police officer from China, who set a new record with a time of 8hr 1min.

Eight hours is a long time spent with your face hovering 20cm away from the floor of a gym. Hood reportedly trained for up to seven hours a day to set the new record.

Planking performed by a grey veteran is a safe and healthy core body exercise. Not a dangerous death inducing activity, brought to infamy by young Instagramers who planked to fame at cliff edges in search of the perfect photo opportunity.

Playing on

Playing football as a professional had remained a distant dream for Eez Eldin Bahder for decades. At the age of 75, he registered with the Egyptian Football Association as its oldest player yet. The father of four and grandfather of six, started playing football in the streets of Cairo at the age of six. Though he carried on playing as an amateur, he abandoned his dream of becoming a professional striker pursuing his work as a civil engineer.

October 6, a club which plays in Egypt’s third division had signed the 75-year-old Bahder who scored a penalty on his debut to secure a 1-1 draw. The grandfather needs to play just 90 more minutes for his team to be officially recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records. Should he play the second match he will beat the current holder Isaak Hayik, who played keeper for Israel’s Ironi Or Yehuda, aged 73.

Culture Zone.

This year, 2020, marks an era when cultural icons of our younger years moved into the grey zone.

Mad Max. The low-budget film of a dystopian future was released in Australia in 1979 but this year celebrated the 40th anniversary of its US release where Australian accents were dubbed with American accents and the title changed to the Road Warrior.
MASH the movie. While eclipsed by the TV series which ended in 1983, the original movie turned 50 this year. The movie starring Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland and Sally Kellerman is still recognised in the top 100 comedy films of all time as judged by the BBC. I do prefer the TV version with Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers and Loretta Swit.
Friday the 13th: The maligned slasher movie which evolved into a franchise well into the 2000’s, this year turned 40. A hockey mask would never again be seen as a piece of innocent safety equipment.
The Female Eunuch. Germaine Greer’s feminist masterpiece 40 years on, came to be regarded as a funny, angry, clever and hopeful attempt to change women’s lives.
Let it Be. The single and the album were released in 1970. The song gave the Beatles their seventh consecutive year charting a number 1 hit, sharing the all-time record, at the time, with Elvis Presley. The album marked the final Beatles album, recorded as the fab four before they disintegrated and moved into their solo careers.

Hopefully this provided a welcome break from the virus targetting the greyzone.

So…till next time.

June 8, 2020 0

The value of experience?

“It’s good to see a few grey heads here.” I smiled at them.

The wind swooshed up and over the escarpment, rocking the gliders as they were prepared for us.

They chuckled, “why do you say that?”

“It means you’ve jumped off and landed a few times! You’re experienced”

A little apprehensive, the last thing we wanted was a young kamikaze pilot intent on showing us a few of their fancy tricks more than a hundred metres in the air.

Hitched into my harness and clipped into the glider, I needed to fold my 6 foot frame into position under the glider canopy and lay flat out to check the settings.

I regained my feet, somewhat ungainly.

“It’s ok, we know it’s not as easy to get up as it used to be.” Trevy, my pilot, laughed.

Last instructions on what to do, he re-assured me to follow him and it would be fine.

“Hold my harness, here and here – just follow me, don’t fight it, I’ll steer us around.”

We inched towards the dirt patch at the edge of the jump off point, the wind slammed up and over the hill trying to lift us off before we were ready. Chris and Dan, the only one without a head of grey but who had a few wrinkles instead, gripped the edges of the glider. The chilly wind swept over my face, the material shook, the rattle made it a little hard to hear. Trevy waited for the right wind, as the frame shook hard, he coached me 1, 2 steps and we were in the air – “lock your legs into the strap- it’s more comfortable.” He shouted over the wind, reminding me of the procedure.

Swooping and hovering over the trees and beach below, it was magic.

Trevy was busy reading the wind and checking for other gliders, he talked through his pilot’s mental check list, till we settled into a comfortable rhythm.

We yelled a conversation about work, moving and our families, as we swept back over the escarpment, turned and ran with the wind stream up the coast. Over the water, we glimpsed breeching whales and swept back to climb again. The wind was freezing, our noses running freely. Circling below, Carol was out gliding with Dan. Thirty minutes passed in a flash and it was time to land, gently like landing on a pillow.

What an experience!

Carol and I sat in a café, to finally regain some warmth. The flight provoked a conversation about experience. Here we’d put ourselves in some else’s hands – experienced hands. People we’d never met, we just trusted them. Carol said she’d felt better that there was no young daredevil but still she had quizzed Dan – how many times had he flown -many he re-assured her.

Here was a situation where we left ourselves to people we’d only just met, our lives in their hands. We were reliant on their experience to launch and land safely – the ultimate KPI. “Must safely land 100% of the times you take off.”

It turned our thoughts to the feeling we’d both been experiencing. We’d felt undervalued in our work. Our experience seemed to mean little. Hard won experience was simply untapped.

For us, it was the realisation that until you have experience and seen situations many times, it’s hard to define – perhaps that was the problem. It was the little and big things of knowing what to look for and where the traps lay.

Like when Trevy and I hit a small shudder in the air. Trevy pointed out that it was the turbulence off Dan’s wing. “On a still day that could be a big problem, you needed to keep your distance.”

Why was there the reluctance we mused? Had we approached the situations the wrong way; after all, no-one wants to hear “I told you so”? But that’s never been our motivation.

Perhaps others needed to prove themselves, was it their insecurities? We shouldn’t take the shunning personally.

Conscious not to be perceived as being stuck in our ways we don’t say – “we’ve tried that it didn’t work!” We had both sat back and in our own ways, let it all swim around us. Letting annoyance build to varying degrees.

Instead of sitting back to avoid stirring turbulence, we resolved that we’d prove our experience was valuable. Otherwise it was doing ourselves and our work a disservice.

We know we’ve both been here before. We needed to rely on our experience and take the time to explain our opinion.

We were not being difficult or stuck in a position but like Trevy and Dan we’d need to use our experience to work out how to get lift off, read the winds and manage the turbulence. All the while reassuring ourselves and others our hard-won experience were worth something, to avoid the traps and safely glide into a landing for us all.

November 4, 2017 0