Peanut butter and Jellyfish

Diana Nyad, age 64, after multiple attempts over 35 years, yesterday successfully completed a 52 hour swim from Cuba to Florida. No shark cage. One jellyfish sting. Lots of planning. Many many dedicated friends, helpers and followers.  She even had a friend who fed her by hand while she swam.  (Yes, sometimes it was peanut butter)  I ask myself - where does that kind of passion come from?

As for me - well, I don't swim - so swimming from Cuba to Florida has never been a blip on my personal Blip screen.  The problem, as I see it, is my personal Blip screen is pretty flat...sort of like my chest...but not as flat as I wish my stomach were.  A burning passion to accomplish something major..or minor..or even in the key of C...just isn't there.  I often say that I never really identified a passion or my "bliss" (chocolate doesn't count).  Some people dispute that. I am constantly reminded of how hard I worked and how much resistance I encountered in order to become a mother. Well, we all know how that turned out.  Maybe that's why the old Blip screen is so flat.  There's always a price for getting what you really really want - at least in my life story.

At 65 I find myself quietly longing for small things...but not too hard and not too loud cause I don't want the gremlins who take away the good stuff to hear me or notice if I get something good. Shhh. I grew up in a house where my Dad(s) was Jewish and my Mom was an Italian Protestant.  Yet, it was the Jewish superstitions that stuck with me. For example, it is advised that a family not reveal the name of a baby boy until his Bris (the ceremony for chopping off of the foreskin), If the name is revealed before that the Angel of Death will sweep in and kill the baby.  There are many more superstitions like this...and I must believe them somewhere down deep in my soul.  You will rarely observe me getting super enthusiastic about anything. I might be partying inside - but the outside is pure Amish.   Liking something, or being really exhuberant about something is my equivalent to Diana's jellyfish. It will sting - and I don't like pain.

So my hat's is off to Diana who never gave up. Who showed the world that age is meaningless.  Who made us all older women proud yesterday.  If I were Diana I would spend today sleeping, nursing my sore muscles and rehydrating with a straw connected to a barrel of Margaritas. (I know - alcohol dehydrates but she can suck on ice cubes) Then I would go to Duval Street and party my saggy butt off.  I can even point her in the direction of the nude bar....They don't serve anything there with peanut butter but I do remember a drink called a Jelly Stinger.  Here's to you Diana!