a perfectly good life

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
First I need to finish my work, I’ve got my priorities straight.
I’ll catch a quick lunch at McDonald’s, I’m too busy to watch my weight.

When I was young and looking for love, exercise was my obsession.
My rippled abs and muscled arms on women made quite an impression.
But once I was married with kids to support and obligations to fulfill,
I stopped exercising and I overate. My sex life went straight downhill.

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
I’m the man of the house. Everyone’s counting on me. I am the great provider.
And I’m too tired to move at the end of the day, so my butt’s getting wider and wider.

When the kids fell in love and left the nest to start families of their own,
I wanted desperately to see the world, from Sao Paolo to Cologne.
But my knees were too weak, blood pressure too high, and arrhythmias pounded my heart.
I wanted to work out so I could follow my dreams, but I was too stiff to even start.

I don’t have time to exercise, I am a busy man.
I don’t have time to exercise, I’ll do it when I can.
I wish I could do the things I used to do, when my body could pass any test.
But with mounting pressures and deadlines to meet, it’s no wonder I’m feeling so stressed.

Now I am old and confined to my bed, with new symptoms appearing each day,
I dream of my youth: If I could start over again, this time I would not go astray.
I’d take care of myself. I’d watch what I eat, and get involved in a particular sport,
But I am too old and too tired, too weak and too fat, my time left on this earth is short.

And now,

I don’t have time to exercise.

The New York Times attributes the following quote to Ruth Bernhard:

“I allowed life to give me presents. And everything just sort of happened the way it was supposed to happen. I did not pursue anything. It more or less pursued me.”

Addendum: I just found the following wonderful note, written in 1995 by Ruth Bernhard:

The New York Times reported that Moses Hardy died last month at the age of 113. Two days later, the world’s oldest person, Elizabeth Bolden died at the age of 116. It appears we’ve lost two remarkable people.

Moses Hardy was the world’s last surviving black World War I veteran. He was born in 1893, when Benjamin Harrison was President of the United States. His father was born in 1830, when Andrew Jackson was President, and both of his parents were slaves. When I read about Hardy’s life, I was momentarily jolted that there was man alive, until just recently, whose parents were slaves. I have no delusions that slavery doesn’t exist today, perhaps in greater numbers than in our country’s early history. I am horrified by the abduction and trafficking of young girls who are forced to work as prostitutes in Cambodia. I abhor the lack of living wages many people in this country must endure simply to survive, which seems like a form of slavery itself. My surprise came from the fact that, until I read this obituary, slavery in this country seemed so long ago. Moses Hardy demonstrated to me that if the span of just two lifetimes can take us back to that horrible time, it really wasn’t that long ago, after all. No wonder the emotional wounds that can carry easily from generation to generation have not healed completely. We need to do more.

It may seem a bit strange that my first post on this blog is about an obituary. But, I have to start somewhere and, in keeping with the theme of “a perfectly good life,” the end of someone’s life is a pretty good place to start.

The December 5, 2006 issue of The New York Sun published an obituary of Sandy Sturges, who died of cancer at the age of 79 a day earlier. She was the widow of Preston Sturges, the famous filmmaker.

The obituary quotes Sandy Sturges as follows:

“I had been raised to believe that perfection was the goal. Through Preston I began to appreciate the foibles of humanity, to appreciate lapses.”

The way she was raised struck me as a perfect example of how we can ruin a perfectly good life.