I Knew Better ...

I had a chiropractor once who said that so many people's lives would be made better if they'd just drink more water each day. Well, I was thinking about all the little things I could do for better health, since this is after all, the time for making New Year's Resolutions.

I myself have always preferred New Year's Vague Intentions. They're friendlier, less likely to hurt when broken. But a resolution by any other name would still pave the road, so let's get on with it.

Okay. Drink more water. A nutritionist recently told me that I should take my weight and divide it in half. The resulting number is the number of ounces of water I should drink per day. I've been trying that for the last three days. I usually manage to do a little under two-thirds of that number ...

I think using my body brush is a great daily activity. It feels good. I've done it for over a month and I think I see or feel or, um, intuit a difference. You just get a brush with natural bristles and brush it up and down your body in the proper sequence and direction and poof! better skin, improved circulation, drained lymphatic system, increased cell renewal, detoxified body ...

I have a friend who recommends jumping three times as soon as you get out of the bed in the morning. That should be easy enough. I could do that just before or just after the body-brushing.

I have a membership to Curves, so adding a thrice-weekly visit there isn't that big a deal.

Eating breakfast every day is something I really need to do. Every study everywhere shows that people who eat breakfast are healthier in every way. Okay. Got it. What else?

Oh, meditation. TM suggests twice a day for twenty minutes each. That's not bad. I can do that. Yeah. See, I can do it, I suppose. I just never have done it.

And that brings me to something else. Liz got me Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, edited by Smith Magazine. That's a pretty wordy title for a work that's requiring a mere six words per memoir. I'll just quote one page so you'll get the idea, but I'm not naming the writers. They were all obscure to me.

• The day just kept getting longer.
• Met lots of crazy famous people.
• Waited too long to get it.
• Took up photography. Got the shot.
• Strange like a cat. Smart like a rat.

Here's possibly my favorite -- by Kate Hamill. Is she famous?

• EDITOR. Get it?

Anyway, here's mine:

• Knew better but didn't do better.

And that's why this list of things to do, this list of resolutions or intentions, this list of ways to be better -- healthier, happier, sweeter ... well, it's just not going to work. Why? Because that's the story of my life -- Knew better but didn't do better.

Taking a vitamin ought to be easy enough, yes?

No.

You know why? It's the dailiness of resolutions -- of doing better -- that's just too difficult. It, in fact, requires too much will power, of which I have little. I may even have less than the average American. That's it! I am will power-deprived. Giving myself tiny tasks -- eat more vegetables, breathe more deeply -- may seem like a small thing, but it's not, not when it's every single day of my life, not when it's twenty small things to do every single frapping day.

I read Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo a couple months ago. The Buddha (in this book anyhow) said that we always have small choices to make, all the time, all day long. Do I go this way, or that way? (Of course, if you're a Lassie in that children's song, you get to go this way and that way and this way and that, without having to choose, you see. Okay. I'll stop. Really.) Anyway, you can choose to have the whole wheat toast or the white toast. You can choose to sit and read the paper or get up and take a walk. And all the little simple choices turn into ... well, your life, I guess.

Well. I don't know where to go from here, so let me just remind you that tomorrow, January 3, 2009, is another All's Faire at the Longhouse (www.longhouse.info.com) and you ought to show up and drink tea and chat. Eleven to four. I'm bringing my tee shirts over there to sell. The only ones with pockets at this time are size XXL, so you may as well stay home, Lee. You, clearly, have been making many of the right little daily choices all along.

• Lee knew better and did it!