Mondays: Lost in Space

Fisher and I joined the YMCA so that he can come with me and we can swim and he can shoot baskets while I get pumped. They have an “EGym”, a room upstairs in the back with machines from outer space that read an astronaut bracelet on my wrist that tells them how tall I am and my wingspan and that my main goal is to not die from heart disease and jello bones.

The bracelet was programmed after a big robot by the door scanned my body and told me that although I’m 48, my bio-age is 57. A nice man named Ryan told me not to worry, that everyone’s bio-age is a lot older before they start working through the outer-space machines.

Then, the robot machine broke down my bio-age limb by limb. That’s when I learned that the oldest part of my body are my legs. They are 70. I wasn’t surprised. My knees audibly crunch when I walk down steps, and my feet usually hurt the first 10 minutes I am out of bed.

Fisher has been watching the Lost in Space series on Netflix. When we drive anywhere (which is usually to a baseball practice or a baseball game or a baseball party or a baseball store), he breaks down the most recent events. He peels back the layers, predicts what will happen next, analyzes the motives of the characters. He takes none of them at face value, and I am happiest about this.

On the way to this past Saturday’s tournament, based on something he saw on the show, Fisher philosophized about whether or not having NO heart would be freedom. He used the words “imminent” and “signifies”, and I told him he was a writer.

I stopped at a red light, and he said, “No, I’m not. I’m a baseball player.” I told him he can be more than one thing at a time. Then, we stopped talking.

We were both watching a young man on the corner holding a handwritten cardboard sign asking for help. The young man’s hair was bleached straw blonde and every inch of exposed skin tanned a deep auburn. He was talking and laughing to himself. I wondered who he thought he was at 10, who he thought he was now. I wondered what his bio-age was.

A few days before that, Fisher and I were on our way home (from a baseball practice), and he said, “Mom, did you know that we never really see things as they are?”

I caught a glimpse of him, plain-faced in the rearview mirror. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Because of the speed of light, we only see things as they were a nanosecond in the past.”

Who is this child? I thought. “Wow, that’s really interesting,” I said. “That seems like a really important piece of information.” A man on a bicycle hugged the edge of the bike lane, and I wondered who he would be one nanosecond from now. Hopefully still upright.

“What do you think that means?” I asked Fisher. “I mean, in the big scheme of things.”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I think it means that we’re never really where we are.”