You Are Horribly, Horribly Old

What I wouldn't do to swap my 39-year-old smarts for the knees (and backs) of my 23-year-old fellow farmers... Weeding baby onions and planting long, long rows of peppers in the sweltering sun yesterday, I felt beyond creaky.

But the best moment was lying down in one of the just hip-wide furrows of earth between the rows. Cradled in the clods, I did feel nutured by the earth. Or maybe it was just the joy of being stretched out instead of folded up.

Later, there was an impromptu dance party in the farm center, with everyone rocking out to "Come on Eileen" and "Just Like Heaven" and I realized I was the only person there who had personally danced to that stuff when it was actually on the radio, in my assymetrical haircut and silver shoes. And then I pulled a muscle in my hip and have been limping around the farm all this morning, feeling even more old and gimpy, if that were even possible. Or worse, like the fake-young man at the beginning of Death in Venice, the one foreshadowing von Aschenbach's eventual transformation and downfall.

Making fresh cornmeal waffles helped, but still...I need to find a way to reconcile my brain and body with the 20-something crew around me.