Move.

I'm thinking about movement, moving... to move.  

How many times does one here the saying, "Learn from your mistakes and move on"?  How many people actually "move on"?  They probably continue living, and doing what they normally do, but do they truly move forward?  Don't most people just keep moving? And in the same direction?

I think of the number of steps I take on a daily basis and where I go.  I don't go anywhere, most of the time.  I move from room to room, picking things us, talking to the children, just doing stuff.  Even when I was teaching, which is a very productive thing to do, my movements were just the retracting of the same steps.  Out of the car, through the parking lot, down the steps, to the door, swipe the card, open the door, up the stairs, open the door...  And then I move around the classroom, a bit like a dance, to the chalkboard, to that student, to that spot where I make the very important point about that book, then back to the chalkboard.

At a certain point in our lives, most people make the decision to move in circles, not forward.  I am included in that group.  We stay with that person, we have those children, we own this house, we have this job.  This is the "real" grown-up world.  We make the big decisions and we are grown up.  We retrace steps over and over.  We rarely step out of our circle.  That circle is safe and it is what we know.  We don't progress.  And that's okay!

Yesterday Sam received results of his semen sample from the doctor who performed his vasectomy. It said, "Blah, blah, you have rare non-motile sperm..."  It went on to "leave it up to us to take the very small risk of pregnancy..."  

Non-motile, means, they don't move or can't move.  Technically that means they can't get to the egg and make the baby.  I had to research all this before making our decision to have unprotected sex.

What I found interesting was that there are many ways sperm move.  An article on Colorado State University's site, written by a medical student,, stated, "In evaluating motility with most species, sperm are classified as non-motile, progressively motile or non-progressively motile. A progressively motile sperm swims forward in an essentially straight line, whereas a non-progressively motile sperm swims, but with an abnormal path, such as in tight circles."

Sperm that move non-progressively, are considered abnormal, yet humans measure success by circular movement.  Everything inside our circle is in sharp focus, clear, we can touch it.  Outside the circle, it's just blurred lines of color.  We're moving so fast.

What was that?  

Who knows!

Watch where you're going, you can't just stop!

Then sometimes, someone grabs your pretty carousel horse by the tail and drags their feet to slow it down, just enough for you to really see outside.   "Whoa, boy."  Maybe you even had the guts drag your own feet, instead of keeping them in the restrictive stirrups.  Maybe you had the gumption to get off the darn horse, completely.  Either way, if you’re spinning circle is disrupted, your movement is about to change.  Maybe you'll move progressively, like that sperm that speeds its way to the egg, and create the life that changes everything.  Maybe you won't.  Maybe you'll look around and realize you just want to get back on the freaking horse and pretend you didn't see a damn thing.

But I want the toes of my shoes to get dirty.  I'll let you know.