What makes for a vital life?

Well...
Rain.  Wind.  Satellite intact still so I'll write here something of what I've learned from April.
Physical pain lasting too long...such a wimp (I have found out).  Not that pain is intolerable, but my actions to keep it from entering my every moment are.  Yikes.  Horrible way to live, not turning one way for fear of bringing about the jolt and then the spasms.  Makes it hell on this farmer to plant these days.  But still, I find I am happy.  Of course I had to first learn to be that way again or rather- choose it.
I think that's how it works.  Choices we have we don't often choose...to choose.  We simply accept this is the way it's gonna be for a LONG time.  Oh my, how depressing.  Thankfully, I found a wonderful masseuse and pretty wise human being in Lubec Maine.  She really worked me over.  And told me her story.  She chose and chose and chose all her life, never once settling from what I could concur...hers is a vital life.  I feel sometimes I get stuck in whatever the opposite of vital is- perhaps unnecessary would be the best opposition (or worst) to being vital.  So- leaving just a little bit of room now for the pain, I choose instead to notice that it is getting better.  Diminishing, dissipating and not so near darned depressing.
I'm such a physical gal, always have been.  It's been a difficult bumpy ride, trying not to hurt more than necessary.   But I hung with it after visiting that hopeful therapist, because she in fact did give me that more than a rub- hope.  Didn't even realized how much I needed it.  Thank goodness for those sweet champions out there who dole it out thick when we forget just how it's done.

And speaking of champions...perhaps visiting the Veterans Hospital yesterday with the Big Fish really made the choosing hope, vitality over despair and depression much easier.  First there was the fellow who hopped and slid , hopped and slid down the hallway into our waiting room.  On crutches, wearing plaid, suspenders and a gigantic smile.  See...that's the thing that gets me, inspires me- how the heck does he smile?  We thought he just refused to use a wheelchair.  Nope.  "Still got one good leg, the other's fake.  If I sit down, I always wonder if I'm going to get up...and I always do."  Smile.  I just sat there but everything in me wanted to bolt from my chair and hug him, thank him...for being so sunny when clearly, it rained often for him.

And then sitting again (one does alot of sitting in those clinics- but only because so many are being served, so it is an honor to just sit and wait with the best of them....) in the pharmacy waiting for the Big Fishes RX.  Wheels, I heard them before I saw them- they whisked like push, slide- push ,slide as his hands did the work his legs used to.  On the wheels was a man, gray headed and bearded, thin yet lovely in a graceful way.  I know...odd description, but I was taken with his beauty.  He shined.  On me.  Looked right at me for what seemed too long, I looked down- then up again and the smile just grew gentler.
Pleased to make your acquaintance.
Yours too.
Off he rolled, lovely as ever though never would he walk again.  It only seemed to make him more beautiful and almost, I swear- almost out of doors, he talked so much with those hands and arms I wondered- could he fly?  He saw me looking through the large plate glass window at him, almost as if he knew I was taking him and his every move into consideration.  Again, that lovely smile towards me and then finally out, into the world.
What makes for a vital life?  Do you know?  Can you add anything to your own or others that might bring that vitality about?
I aim to get right on it after this post.  My own life needs shined up a bit.  So that others might see in me that same kind of beauty, vitality- like the man on the wheels who made me believe he just might fly some day.
Take care-