We’re going soon to hear a soothsayer, and I hope what she says concerning the new year (being 2020, it should sharpen her foresight) will be as soothing as my mood is now, a fact that can be traced certainly in part to Dr. Langone’s orthotics, which seem to have angled me ever forward onto my toes, a good thing if you’re ready to rush the net in doubles.
“Poised” is the word I think she used, and it would be nice if the sense of balance I’m feeling in my feet flows up to my head, but you can’t have everything.
Meanwhile, the physical boost is welcome — I’m playing as well, absent the ability to move, as I ever have, Mary, the new orthotics, and coffee meriting thanks, in that order.
Mentally, it’s another story: I’m striving for a sense of equipoise, but it’s difficult, like standing for a long time on one of those teeter-totters at East End Physical Therapy. Clear the mind, but it’s hard when there are so many contraries to weigh — life/death, good/evil, love/hate, bliss/suffering, beauty/repulsion, Trump/decency, things like that — and so many distractions.
I would sit in the lotus position, but my knees creak.
Instead, I think, it’s good simply to accept what is and to do one’s best to ameliorate suffering rather than, as I said recently, chase the will-o’-the-wisp of perfection, a yearning that often results in messianic zeal, intolerance, and perversions of power — to seek, as John Keats said, “no wonder but the human face,” to stay on your toes in the ever-changing now, to remain balanced on the teeter-totter.
A neat feat if you can do it, I imagine my podiatrist saying, before adding that orthotics ought to help.