Just a Shake of the Head

I went for a run last night.  It wasn't necessarily fun, but I feel like I have to because I've added another ring on the tire around my waist.  Gained seven pounds, I did, in five weeks, which doesn't sound like much, but when you try to run with a decent sized watermelon on your hips, it can take a toll. 

So, in my attempt to shed the melon, I decided to go out into the sauna - a. k. a. the outdoors (100 degrees and 100 percent humidity: It's like breathing through a wet paper towel) and run at least five kilometers.  Surely after establishing my fitness for the last four years, entering races much longer than five kilometers, I could certainly jog 5,000 meters without stopping.

Wrong.

Something happens to a person when they reach a certain age and weight.  It's like standing in the middle of a tide pool, one force is pushing you out, one is pushing you in and you can't move; you just kind of jiggle.  But I give myself credit for still making the attempt, even if I'm the only one.  So, I donned my long shorts (I still haven't succumbed to squeezing into men's short shorts which are still popular here), a sweat removing shirt (note to self, when you're already sweating when you get into the shirt it doesn't really work) my new shoes that I bought from Weaver's shoe store in 'downtown' Buffalo Center, Iowa - shameless plug for an excellent small town business in North Central Iowa- my Iowa Hawkeyes ball cap and stepped out into the sauna.  For a few seconds I just tried to breathe.  The heat and humidity is so oppressive it can literally feel as if someone has enveloped your whole body and face in plastic wrap.  Then, I did my stretches for seventeen seconds.  I'm not very flexible and I'm relatively self conscious about my inability to touch my toes.  After putting in my headphones, I started off up the blacktop, turned left down McKay Street and right on Woodlands which is all downhill.

I like running downhill.  It makes me feel fastish.  I get a sense that I'm moving quickly anyway and when I pass others along the hill, I run faster, impressing them, of course, with the wind that blows by them in the sweatstorm that I bring.  Then, when I am safely out of their sight, I slow down again trying to calm my breathing because it feels like I just inhaled a basketball.

I pass other people coming towards me, but the men are the best.  Often I will come across a man with a floppy, wide brimmed hat, fluorescent vest, short shorts and tall boots with black socks.  These are known as council workers whom I have ultimate respect for.  They stand in this weather (standing still is probably a more proper description) for eight hours a day watching other council workers work. 

I ran past three of them yesterday, all of them dressed similarly as described above.  Coming from the place that I do in Iowa, we greet with a 'hello' or a raised hand, sometimes I'll nod which is a customary greeting.  But in Australia, the men, especially, greet me differently.  Instead of inclining, or even declining, their heads to say, 'Yes, I see you,' they shake their heads once, quickly to one side as if to say, 'No, I don't understand why you are running in this heat.'  But it's always a shake of the head.  Disagreeable?  I don't know, but I do know one thing...

My Grandma Nacke is the most agreeable person I know in the world.  I'm actually not aware of a time that she has ever shaken her head, or at least not to us.  Sometimes I have watched her on the phone and I listen to her responses in that beautiful, pinched Midwestern accent: Yah, Okeee, Sure, All right then, Bye now.  These are some of her favorite responses for anything, I think.  Someone on the other end of the telephone could have said, "Mrs. Nacke, we've decided that we're going to tear down your barn tomorrow night and put in a high rise hotel."  Yah, you do that then.  Okee, that'll be nice.  "Mrs. Nacke, we have some extra nuclear waste that needs to be disposed of, would you mind if we put that in your basement?"  Okeee, that's fine then.

My Grandmother is so nice that I would swear that when a mosquito is biting her she actually asks it if it is full before she moves it on.

Granma Nacke has lived on the farm by herself for the last 17.5 years.  Her husband, my Grandpa Nacke, died within months of Christine and I getting married, and I remember the time Grandma told me about the night he died.  His last words to her as he drifted off to sleep were I love you.  She got up in the middle of the night and when she came back, God had welcomed him home.  Not many people get to have their last words to their spouse be words of love.

But she stayed on the farm; she still mows the lawn and takes care of the garden.  Her own household chores, she does and still is an avid quilter at the church.  People call her for her opinion and it's a miracle to watch how her agreeable nature continues to transform the community around her. 

We stayed with her a few days.  She, too, like my other grandparents, has furniture from the 80's; the carpet is thick shag, rust red; the grandfather clock sits in her dining room chiming away the quarter hours with somber intensity and the cuckoo clock surprises us with her abrupt chirping.  Time is always told at grandma's house and when I was growing up, it seemed to go slow there - always time to play cards, to eat cookies, to chat, but now time is faster and when we visit, there is not enough.  I wish there was a slow motion button on life - not pause, just slow it down so I can memorize the details of my marvelously agreeable grandmother.   She, too, is diminutive, barely five feet tall, stoop shouldered, sandy short hair, wide smile with a big gap in her front teeth.  I would guess she has won a few dollars in a watermelon seed spitting contest.  She is spry in a ninety-year-old way and even though she has a cane, her mind could still run laps around the old people at the nursing home she visits (who are mostly younger than she is.)

Three years ago, my Grandma Nacke came to Australia.  At age 87, she clambered aboard a 747 with my mother and made the excruciating journey over the Pacific Ocean.  We had an amazing time; she  hiked with us, stayed up late with us, wanted us to play piano (she pronounces it Pie-ano: I love that) and ate all the foods that we did.  When she got back to the States, one of the first things she did was to get herself an i-Pad.  Up to that point, I'm not sure she even knew how to type and e-mail was something of science fiction.  No, my Grandma Nacke now Facetimes, has a Facebook account and is frequently accused of checking her e-mail first thing in the morning.

And every time I see her, she is nodding her head. 

Hi, there.  It's so good to see you.  Yah, I'm good. 

She is good.