Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
After yesterday’s unexpected skunk adventure and my regular Saturday 10-kilometer run, I decided that my body deserved a little extra kindness. The plan was simple: go to bed a bit earlier than usual and allow myself an extra hour of sleep. Reality, as it often does, negotiated different terms. Today is my weekend yard work routine.
I only managed to get to bed about thirty minutes early, but even that turned out to help. I let my wife know that I planned to sleep later than normal so she wouldn’t wonder whether I had mysteriously disappeared overnight.
My wife is an impressively early riser. By the time I normally wake up, she has often already finished a remarkable amount of work.
While I take care of mowing our steep backyard, she tackles everything the mower cannot reach. She edges the lawn, pulls weeds around the flower beds, and clears the narrow areas along the sides and back of the house. It is work that never seems to end, especially during a Nashville summer.
This year has been particularly rainy, which means the weeds have been thriving with almost suspicious enthusiasm.
Even when the grass is still damp, my wife heads outside to keep it under control. It’s a weekend yard work routine. Experience has taught us that weeds are excellent opportunists. Ignore them for a few weeks, and they begin behaving as though they have inherited the property.
We learned that lesson firsthand.
One year, my wife wasn’t feeling well and had to skip yard work for about a month. When she finally recovered, her first weekend back outside turned into a two- or three-hour battle with weeds that had clearly mistaken her absence for permanent retirement.
Since then, she has adopted a much more effective strategy.
Never give the weeds a chance.
Eventually, my extra sleep came to an end, not because of an alarm clock, but because the sound of the piano gently awakened me.
Apparently, after attending a wedding recently, my wife felt inspired to practice again.
There are certainly worse ways to wake up.
By the time I climbed out of bed, the rain had already begun.
It continued for most of the day and is expected to last into the evening. Fortunately, tomorrow’s forecast looks much more promising. The morning should be surprisingly cool, with relatively low humidity by Nashville standards.
That sounds like nearly perfect running weather.
Sometimes the most productive day is not the one filled with accomplishments.
Sometimes it is the one that gives your body a chance to recover, your garden a good soaking, and your weeds just enough confidence to think they are winning.
Tomorrow, we’ll remind them otherwise.