I'm going to live forever.
At least, that's been the consensus for a while now among friends and family. With the exception of getting mowed down by a bus while I'm out walking, everyone seems to think my lifestyle will ensure that I join the centenarian club, thus continuing to annoy others with my sass and optimism for decades to come.
Back in the '90s, I read of studies confirming that people who flossed daily lived two to six years longer and that day took up daily flossing after a lifetime of merely brushing. I seem to recall telling Lady G about my discovery and how quickly I'd taken up the habit and her responding, "Of course you did."
Mock me all you want, but I don't leave the house at night without having flossed. Just ask my brother-in-law, who was giving me floss brand recommendations at his daughter's wedding last fall.
And just in the last couple of days, Facebook friends have provided the latest findings from the medical science community, providing still more validation for my lifestyle choices.
Leave it to Gallery 5 (where I've seen more shows than I can count) to let me know that behavioral scientist Patrick Fagan has come out with a study saying that attending a concert once every two weeks adds nine years to your life. Nine years. When I told Mac this momentous news at lunch yesterday, she barely stopped chewing, instead deadpanning, "Wow, you really are going to live forever, aren't you?"
Seems that live music increases a feeling of self worth, closeness to others and mental stimulation, all of which go toward upping our sense of well-being. And here I thought that happy feeling I get when the lights go down and the band starts playing was just me.
And now I learn from a posting by the drama queen that neuro-scientists strongly recommend that we go to the beach frequently. Seems that the sense of calmness and peace you have at the seaside is now officially called "blue space" for what the combination of soothing smells and the sound of the waves do to your brain.
Well, duh. Since my parents first took me to the beach at two months old, I have known that nothing makes me feel as completely unwound and at ease as hearing and smelling the ocean. The interesting part of that equation is the absence of sun in it.
As I was pointing out to my favorite lake person just yesterday, a rainy day at the beach is better than a sunny day at home any day. Even when an umbrella is necessary to walk the beach, I can still take in the briny air. Even when a thunderstorm has interrupted an afternoon reading on the beach, I can still be soothed by the sound of the waves.
That's because science has concluded that it's a change in the way our brains react to our environment at the beach that results in us feeling relaxed, happy and re-energized.
So next time I'm sitting on the porch swing at the beach having poetry read to me, know that I'm doing it for my health. Ditto going to shows. I can't believe I ever entrusted my longevity to merely flossing.
Apparently, I'm going to need all three to stay healthy enugh to avoid that bus.
Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ocean. Show all posts
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Don't Tell Dad
Everybody has their own beach rules.
You can spring from the same set of loins, but it doesn't mean you "do" the beach the same way as your kin, a fact of which I'm reminded every time I share someone's beach time with them. The past few days have been at a cottage called "Flip Flops" with a couple of my sisters and various members of their clans.
We couldn't be more different beach-wise, at least in most ways.
Oceanfront is a must for me, while she's okay with oceanside, which is still considerably better than the sister who rents in the woods on the Sound side. I want to hear and see the ocean every minute of every day I'm there.
I wouldn't think of using air conditioning ever (hell, my cottage didn't even have window units until two years ago), but especially when I'm surrounded by salt air and breezes, while my sister cools her beach house to meat locker temperatures. Walking in, hot from the beach or wet from a shower, is unpleasantly cold.
Every cottage needs a screened-in porch in my opinion, yet my sister only requires a covered porch, although I will say that this year's did at least have a view of the ocean. I said nothing when she began the day by slathering anti-itch cream on all the bites on her ankles from last night's porch session.
They like to be off the beach by 4:00 while my favorite beach time is just beginning then. Maybe it's the art historian in me, but I can think of no richer, more saturated colors in summertime than the last few hours before about 7:00, after which the evening can officially begin.
And what folly is this? My father instilled in the six of us the absolute need for binoculars at the beach, yet they don't bring them. So all the strange ships far out in the water, the dark schools of bluefish just under the surface and playful pods of dolphins have to be scrutinized from afar. What can a person learn from that distance?
Where we agree is that time spent at the beach means time spent in the ocean.
Knowing today was my last day there and breaking every mother's rule about eating and going in the water, I finished my lunch, wiped the crumbs on my legs and headed directly into the ocean just behind Sister #4's family.
Nephew #1 eventually joined once the left and it was just us when three dolphins surfed the waves directly in front of us. As many times as I've seen them, I'd never been closer. Yet he headed back once he realized his beer was getting warm onshore.
Left alone in the brilliant green water by myself became almost a meditation.
Up to my neck, with no one around to talk to, it occurred to me that this was why doctors used to send recovering patients to the seashore: the gentle exercise of staying above the waves, the warm yet still refreshing water, the briny air all combined to make me feel utterly relaxed but also strangely invincible.
After a while, Sister #2 joined me in the ocean, saying I'd looked pitiful out there by myself. Beer gone, Nephew #1 returned, only to crack us up with his Nature Channel impersonation as a pale, young woman who'd been floating on a paddleboard nearby attempted to awkwardly stand.
In the muted voice of a golf announcer, he intoned, "Yes, and now she's presenting her albino thighs and cheeks to capture the male's attention and find a use for her child-bearing hips...." before she took a nosedive.
So much for my meditative state.
By the time I finally climbed out of the water, fingers as wrinkled as raisins, it had been nearly two hours since I'd given over the rest of my day at the beach to the ocean and it was time for a quick outdoor shower to get the salt crust out of my ears before heading home.
Home, past signs saying "Blue Lives Matter," behind an 18-wheeler spewing dirt like smoke with projectiles (illegal, right?) which, given my open car windows, felt a lot like traveling in Pigpen's wake and uncomfortably close to a group of trucks with Confederate flags parked on the side of Route 460.
None of which, I'm happy to report, affected my ocean-induced state of relaxation.
I made it home in time to catch Afrikana Film Fest's outdoor screening of the 1988 cult classic "Coming to America" being shown up on the hill at Tredegar under the stars.
Guests were encouraged to recite lines, sing songs and act out and they did. Dogtown Dance even performed live when the palace dancers did their big number in the movie.
Honestly, I hadn't seen it since I saw it in the theater when it came out when we were all in Eddie Murphy's thrall and swooning to hear him say things like, "I want a woman that will arouse my intellect as well as my loins."
It also didn't hurt to have - flashback! - Arsenio Hall say stuff such as, "Girl, you look so good, someone ought to put you on a plate and sop you up with a biscuit."
It's a compliment I know I'd be happy to hear, although it might taste a little gritty. I've still got sand in my hair.
You can spring from the same set of loins, but it doesn't mean you "do" the beach the same way as your kin, a fact of which I'm reminded every time I share someone's beach time with them. The past few days have been at a cottage called "Flip Flops" with a couple of my sisters and various members of their clans.
We couldn't be more different beach-wise, at least in most ways.
Oceanfront is a must for me, while she's okay with oceanside, which is still considerably better than the sister who rents in the woods on the Sound side. I want to hear and see the ocean every minute of every day I'm there.
I wouldn't think of using air conditioning ever (hell, my cottage didn't even have window units until two years ago), but especially when I'm surrounded by salt air and breezes, while my sister cools her beach house to meat locker temperatures. Walking in, hot from the beach or wet from a shower, is unpleasantly cold.
Every cottage needs a screened-in porch in my opinion, yet my sister only requires a covered porch, although I will say that this year's did at least have a view of the ocean. I said nothing when she began the day by slathering anti-itch cream on all the bites on her ankles from last night's porch session.
They like to be off the beach by 4:00 while my favorite beach time is just beginning then. Maybe it's the art historian in me, but I can think of no richer, more saturated colors in summertime than the last few hours before about 7:00, after which the evening can officially begin.
And what folly is this? My father instilled in the six of us the absolute need for binoculars at the beach, yet they don't bring them. So all the strange ships far out in the water, the dark schools of bluefish just under the surface and playful pods of dolphins have to be scrutinized from afar. What can a person learn from that distance?
Where we agree is that time spent at the beach means time spent in the ocean.
Knowing today was my last day there and breaking every mother's rule about eating and going in the water, I finished my lunch, wiped the crumbs on my legs and headed directly into the ocean just behind Sister #4's family.
Nephew #1 eventually joined once the left and it was just us when three dolphins surfed the waves directly in front of us. As many times as I've seen them, I'd never been closer. Yet he headed back once he realized his beer was getting warm onshore.
Left alone in the brilliant green water by myself became almost a meditation.
Up to my neck, with no one around to talk to, it occurred to me that this was why doctors used to send recovering patients to the seashore: the gentle exercise of staying above the waves, the warm yet still refreshing water, the briny air all combined to make me feel utterly relaxed but also strangely invincible.
After a while, Sister #2 joined me in the ocean, saying I'd looked pitiful out there by myself. Beer gone, Nephew #1 returned, only to crack us up with his Nature Channel impersonation as a pale, young woman who'd been floating on a paddleboard nearby attempted to awkwardly stand.
In the muted voice of a golf announcer, he intoned, "Yes, and now she's presenting her albino thighs and cheeks to capture the male's attention and find a use for her child-bearing hips...." before she took a nosedive.
So much for my meditative state.
By the time I finally climbed out of the water, fingers as wrinkled as raisins, it had been nearly two hours since I'd given over the rest of my day at the beach to the ocean and it was time for a quick outdoor shower to get the salt crust out of my ears before heading home.
Home, past signs saying "Blue Lives Matter," behind an 18-wheeler spewing dirt like smoke with projectiles (illegal, right?) which, given my open car windows, felt a lot like traveling in Pigpen's wake and uncomfortably close to a group of trucks with Confederate flags parked on the side of Route 460.
None of which, I'm happy to report, affected my ocean-induced state of relaxation.
I made it home in time to catch Afrikana Film Fest's outdoor screening of the 1988 cult classic "Coming to America" being shown up on the hill at Tredegar under the stars.
Guests were encouraged to recite lines, sing songs and act out and they did. Dogtown Dance even performed live when the palace dancers did their big number in the movie.
Honestly, I hadn't seen it since I saw it in the theater when it came out when we were all in Eddie Murphy's thrall and swooning to hear him say things like, "I want a woman that will arouse my intellect as well as my loins."
It also didn't hurt to have - flashback! - Arsenio Hall say stuff such as, "Girl, you look so good, someone ought to put you on a plate and sop you up with a biscuit."
It's a compliment I know I'd be happy to hear, although it might taste a little gritty. I've still got sand in my hair.
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