Just about everyone at my stage of life, late 40s, has aspirations associated with physical fitness, health and wellbeing. When I was younger, exercise was relatively easy. Going for regular runs and generally being more active in recreational pursuits was just part of life.

Stereotypically, when I hit 30 a lost it. With young kids I stopped doing sporty stuff with my mates. I had always eaten pretty much whatever I wanted without obvious consequences … then I started getting podgy. I was watching home video one day where I was mucking around with the kids on the floor; I saw my protruding gut and thought ‘Oh crap!’. Blah, blah, typical story. So I resurrected my fitness and began swimming, and other stuff and being more careful about food. But in the meantime a subtle shift started to happen.

Again typically, mid 30s to mid 40s my mind acted as if I was still 20 something, but my body started breaking down. To put it bluntly, I kept injuring myself. And then more recently my second encounter with melanoma brings home the reality that whatever fantasy might be going on in my head, I am not immune to aging.

So these days, exercise is actually a survival instinct, rather than recreation. Not that good general fitness will necessarily fend off the cancer, but my strong will to keep living life to the full is great incentive to stay in OK shape. I say OK shape, because I have also made peace with the what I can realistically achieve in multidimensional life.

For the last few years my practice has been to exercise three times a week. Problem was that if for some reason I missed one, then two a week didn’t seem enough to ward off the sluggard in me. And during winter, if the man-flu hits then it can eat a few weeks before you realise it.

So at the start of 2012 I set myself a simple goal; exercise 5 days a week. But I had to make some changes to make it possible. Firstly, rather than an early (work) meeting knocking out the routine, I made the commitment to get up at rude o’clock if necessary to make sure the heart got started.

Secondly, what worked for me was figuring out how I could minimise the faffing around at the beginning and end … all valuable time. So I decided to compromise – when our local YMCA closed for a major (2 year) refurb, rather than join somewhere else I bought a decent exercise bike for cardio and a few dumbbells. If push-ups and sit-ups are good enough for Tom Hafey, then they’re probably OK for me. So two mornings on the floor in the lounge (Johanna gives me a hard time about the background puffs and groans that accompany her getting ready for school – but she’ll get over it), two on the bike on the back deck and then a swim on Sundays. Apart from a couple of weeks when lurgy has slowed me down, I’ve managed 5/7 every week this year.

For some people that might not be big ‘do’, but I’m feeling pretty chuffed.

About doing, rather than thinking about …

My Japanese is pretty rubbish really, but long after I stopped learning I still find myself resorting to Japanese words in my head when the English phrase is not quite right. And having studied teaching second languages at Uni, I was across all the research that indicated how valuable it is for people to learn to see the world through the lens of another culture / language. We mono-lingual Skips miss out really.

So in the spirit of living with no regrets, I reckon its time for me to get learning. Given that I hope slow travel will feature heavily in the coming years, I found myself wondering how good it would be to have at least a basic understanding of the major languages of the world. My realistic aim is to be able to have basic, travel oriented conversations in at least French and Italian (to add to Japanese) If I do that, then in the years to come I’ll add more, this will be a lifelong project.

But for me there has been a psychological hurdle. One of the reasons my Japanese is crappier than it might have been was my failure to embrace failure. I am one of those people who used to hide behind a ‘natural ineptitude’ – which is probably code for “too gutless to make a fool of oneself”. Unless I figured I knew how to construct the sentence perfectly I would baulk at even starting it. So one of the things I had to take on board in embarking on my new language journey is the inevitability of feeling inadequate.

And it got me thinking again about the learning process. I realise how easy it is for us to stay comfortable in the areas in which we are competent. As we go through life we get recognised for our expertise in certain things and it is both affirming and comforting to stay within that community. Well bollocks to that … if we are fair dinkum about lifelong learning lets always be putting ourselves in situations where others are better than us, and lets embrace the inevitability of feeling inadequate and embarrassed by our elementary knowledge and skill.

… he says gulping, realising he is talking to himself.

 bientôt

Hello again everyone.

It’s a strong theme of my other blog to live with no regrets. The association is usually with the bigger decisions in life, but this year I’ve also been taking on some smaller projects. In the ongoing spirit of the Do Lectures, this year there a few things that I’ve been doing rather than pondering about.

Since the beginning of the year I’ve been working on a ‘meaningful food project’. The objective is to capture the stories and recipes associated with meaningful food experiences in our family. You know how it works, over the years certain dishes get associated with particular feelings or events. Food traditions become really important in our identity and belonging. So far we’ve got 28 recipes to include.

For each one I’ve allocated 4 pages in a bound book. Page 1 is about the story – why is this food meaningful for us? Page 2 is reserved for photos. Page 3 is ingredients and 4 is method.

I decided to handwrite it rather than sanitise it digitally. The idea is to create a bit of a scrapbook rather than a polished product. Downside is that there will only be one … with 4 kids not sure how it will work, but we’ll figure that out later.

I’m not rushing it. I expect it will take a couple of years to complete. I’ve tended to fill out the pages as we happen cook a dish. Today, for example was minestrone day.

An extract goes something like this;

“When there is a pot on the stove, the house always smells good, but Maria’s minestrone takes it to another level. The deep, rich aroma from the slow cooked osso bucco and tomato broth somehow gets in your bones. Like her other Italian dishes, this food reminds us who we are and where we belong. Its good anytime of the year but especially good on a winter weekend.”

Next time I’ll share some of my feelings as I put L plates on as I teach myself French.