I should write about this while the effect still lasts. To be put on steroids was, I told the doctor, a wonderful thing for a golden-ager, though I know, at least have been told, that they’re not great for you in the long run.
But in the short run, oh my.
“Does your wrist still ache?” Mary asked. I wiggled it back and forth. “No!” I said, oddly pleased that a plague of baby ticks, the size of periods and extending almost unto the bodily orifices of my nether regions had been the cause of both agony (in the form of tortured itchiness) and ecstasy.
It would be a stretch to liken the effects of the pills I’ve been prescribed (but only until three days hence) to the remarkable results L-dopa produced in catatonic patients, but there is some similarity, physically anyway, if not mentally. In brief, there is physical clarity; I no longer ache, am no longer arthritic, no longer inflammatory, and the itch (though not for my inamorata, with whom I’m celebrating our 34th anniversary today) is gone! Loretta! It’s a miracle!
I know, though, from experience, that this feeling of wholeness, if not youth (my serve this morning was the best it’s ever been, I think) won’t last long. I should have put off our men’s 70’s doubles semifinal until this week so that instead of standing there at the net like a statue, I would have covered the court like a blanket, pirouetting here and there in running down our opponents’ incessant lobs to the corners of the baseline and returning them with bazooka-like force before dashing forward to crisply put away their fluttering replies at the net.
And there may indeed be a mental side effect too, come to think of it. All of a sudden, I’m speaking in tongues and recalling in explicit detail all that didn’t happen in 1969 — 50 years ago!
I probably should be out on a training run to Montauk and back rather than sitting here pouring forth my soul abroad in such an ecstasy.
It’s fun, but I know it will pass.
Alas.Jack Graves