Hard Things in Small Pieces

The old people figured it out.

We brought the new ridiculously heavy ‘walking pad’ off the porch and into the house piece by piece. And then we read the tiny, nearly illegible, secretly coded instructions and put it together. This is basically a baby treadmill, very compact and sweet. And now it’s positioned so I can simultaneously walk, pet the cat, and watch the news. It’s deluxe.

If I was really dexterous, I could set up my laptop and write while I walk. But that seems nightmarish, do I want to be that driven?

Still, I have a thirst for more. More health, more activity, more engagement, more effort, more work, more impact. It’s an age thing, the drive to be useful. It’s overwhelming and joyful at the same time.

After I read an article in this morning’s paper about the National Archives seeking volunteers who can read cursive to ‘translate’ old documents, I right away investigated. Wow, I thought. I could do that. I can read cursive! Excited like I could read Sanskrit or Mandarin. We are a dying breed, us cursive readers, so I figured I should do my part for the National Archives, America’s history and all.

It looks really hard.

Translators choose what they want to work on. There are individual pension records from the Revolutionary War, correspondence related to the Warren Commission, documentation of submarine sightings, so many topics, and apparently thousands of volunteer cursive readers plugging away at their work. I love jobs. I will fit right in.

Walking on the baby treadmill is harder than I remember. I can walk far at the dog park but somehow, the treadmill is different, the rhythm, the counting – time, distance, calories, heart rate. So I got off after ten minutes, pledging to do ten more before the day is done.

Hard things in small pieces. That’s the ticket.

Time to start on the 200 postcards for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election on April 1st. No cursive, they all have to be printed. Remember, no one can read cursive but us old folks. We’re so golden.