A Body in Motion

Newton's First Law of Motion is, in laywoman's terms, a body at rest stays at rest and a body in motion stays, well, in motion.

When I was a kid, I nerded out to nature shows.  My sister and I would lie on our bellies, heads perched in our hands, and watch Mutual Omaha's Wild Kingdom.  I loved those animals.  They were quirky and communal and beautiful.

The one animal I did not like was the sloth.  To look at them scared me, actually.  Still does, a bit.  Their triangle-shaped, flat heads and beaky noses seemed unnatural to me.  And forget about the claws.  I could not even handle thinking about those strange hoof-like grippers that kept sloths in the canopies of the forests.  So disgusting.  Recently, I learned that sloths move so slowly that moss grows on their backs.  Can you imagine?  Wearing a blanket of moss.  See, I told you they were disgusting.

Perhaps my distaste for the sloth explains my distaste for a sloth-like life.  The life that is so easily fallen in to.  The life that so many of us live.

Sometimes, I give myself sloth-days. The ones where the couch wins out over the gym and the TV wins out over the book (Let's face it, the TV usually wins out over everything, including conversation with loved ones.  I digress.); days where I let some elves in some magic factory far away make my dinner, put it in the box for me, and tell me how to heat it up. In the microwave, of course.  Dinner in three-and-a-half minutes.  Ding.

The problem with these days is that they are contagious.  Rarely does a day of sloth remain just a day; instead, the day slowly reaches with its claws, crawling from one day in the canopy of laziness (isn't that called a hammock?) to the next, creeping so slowly that they, or rather we, gather slime along the way.

Funny how the flesh, which takes months to mold into something resembling a sense of muscularity, spreads into Jell-O so quickly.  In a matter of days, really.  As if that's the state it really wants to be in.  The state of cushion-hood.  I suppose some of us could fool ourselves into thinking that, in our days of inertia, we are proving physics.  After all, once at rest it is so easy to stay at rest.

People often ask me how I am so strong given the disability that I have.  My answer always is: A body in motion stays in motion.  I have always been active.  As a teen, I walked the family dog.  In my twenties, I joined the gym and joined the treadmill race, walking not running, of course (These were fanatical days.  Ones to which I wish never to return.).  In my thirties, I discovered Pilates.  Nowadays, I do "Lite" versions of aerobics classes at a gym.  Exercise has not only kept my body stronger than it should be but it's also kept the moss off my back.

And wasn't Newton talking about more than just physics?  Can't we make this a fill-in-the-blank?  A _______ at rest stays at rest; and A ______ in motion stays in motion.  A mind.  A passion. A love affair.

What would you fill in that blank?  What in your life is at rest that really needs to be in motion?  How about your back?  Exempting the occasional back hair, is it filled with moss?  Is it time to scrape it off and set those claws on the ground?