Anyway, I was watching Netflix yesterday, during my daily break between work and compulsive housekeeping. I must be a huge snob because I never watch American political thrillers or crime procedural dramas, but I love this kind of crap when it has a British accent. I’ve never seen a single episode of “Law and Order” but I watched all three seasons of “Broadchurch” and I also watched a season of “Hinterland” because murder in Wales is even better than murder in England.
RIght now I’m midway through “Bodyguard.” Spoiler alert--I looked up a spoiler because I wanted to know how it all turns out. So I already know what happened, even though I’m only on episode three of six.
“Bodyguard” features Gina McKee as a high official of some British security service. She played the friend in the wheelchair in “Notting Hill,” a movie that I don’t particularly like or dislike, but have seen. Until “Bodyguard,” that was the only thing I’d ever seen her in. She looks much older now as of course she would and should because “Notting Hill” is an old movie now. Age aside, though, Ms. McKee is instantly recognizable and looks very much like she did in 1999--just older. Does that make sense? I find that people fall into two categories vis-a-vis aging: Some older people look completely different than their younger selves where others look just like older versions of the people they always were. I’d rather be the latter (I think), but only an observer who knew me then and knows me now can say for sure which category I fall into. I’m not a screen actress so there’s not much video or film evidence of my existence as a person in her thirties.
*****
My body is falling apart. Not really, I guess, but every day I find some minor thing that’s wrong that wasn’t wrong the day before. My left knee and my left shoulder are both messed up and in typical fashion, I’m ignoring the pain until it goes away on its own. I used to be able to do the stretch where you connect both hands behind your back, with one arm high and the other low; and I can still do it with my left arm high and my right arm low but I can’t do the reverse. Not even close. I also can’t really do the one where you clasp your hands behind your back and then bend over as if to turn yourself inside out. I mean I can clasp my hands and I can bend over, but doing both at the same time is really so much harder than it used to be.
On the upside, I can bend over at the waist and place my hands palm-down on the floor and keep them there. I can still walk long distances. I haven’t been running for a few weeks because I’m afraid that I’ll injure myself and then be forced to divert valuable medical resources away from coronavirus victims. But I could probably run a little bit if I needed to.
*****
I haven’t gotten sick, thankfully. I’m trying to eat properly (a losing battle) and I’m exercising and drinking water and taking vitamins and forcing the rest of my family to do the same. But I still feel a lot more creaky and exhausted than normal. Why is this, I wonder? Wouldn’t you think that with more time on my hands because I’m not rushing here or there all the time, and I’m not spending time dressing up for work and making lunches and putting gas in the car and all of the other million time-consuming daily normal-life tasks, I’d be more rested and less stressed?. Well, that’s ridiculous; first of all, because I’m me and secondly because this isn’t a damn vacation, is it?
So maybe my body isn’t really falling apart, it’s just feeling the effects of this unnatural, uncertain, open-ended crisis. I look in the mirror every day; and other than the shaggy, still-longer-than-usual outgrowth of a self-inflicted haircut and several additional pounds, I don’t think I look much different than usual. But I feel a lot different. It feels different in here, inside my body.
*****
How did I get from British crime dramas on Netflix to creaky joints and hot-mess hair? Oh, how do I ever get from A to completely non sequitur B in these ridiculous posts? That’s a completely different subject; in fact, maybe I’ll write about it.
Oh, I remember! Gina McKee! I was thinking, as I watched “Bodyguard,” that even though she looks older, she doesn’t really look different, but she probably feels different. We can see that she’s the same Gina McKee who sat in the wheelchair in “Notting Hill.” It’s been almost 20 years since “Notting Hill;” and in 20 years, a lot of things happen in a person’s life and in her body and in her mind. Things change, and not only in a bad way. For every wrinkle, there’s probably a new insight or experience. Every gray hair corresponds with some deep sorrow or some hilarious joke. Only Gina McKee knows what it feels like to be in her body; but watching her performance, I got the sense that she's comfortable where she is.
*****
Or maybe she’s not. Maybe she has good days and bad days. Maybe sometimes she doesn’t mind looking older and maybe other times, it bothers her a lot. Anyway, that’s how I feel, so maybe I’m just projecting. What do I know about anything, anyway?
I do know one thing. I realized a few days ago that my recent pain and creakiness might be the fault of the hard wooden chair that I’ve been sitting in during the last six weeks of working from home. I got a better chair and I’m thinking that it will make all the difference. I’ll report back later. Meanwhile, I finished watching “Bodyguard.” As I said, I’d already found out how it ended, but not in detail, so I didn’t really know until I watched all the way through who among the police and intelligence agents would turn out to be a villain. Gina McKee’s character stayed on the right side of the law, which made me happy. I’d been rooting for her.
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