Strange Ruminations

I haven't had goats for a couple of years now, and it's been longer than that since I've shown them or had an active breeding program. At one time, I had aspired to be a dairy goat judge, not for the power or control or prestige, but because I really enjoyed evaluating the animals. The late great Harvey Considine, who I had the incredible honor of meeting and chatting with, thought I had a good eye for the work. He told me something I found funny at the time, that his father (I think?) who was also in livestock (although not dairy goats) had a habit or looking at people's feet, at the way they walked. Oddly enough, this habit has become mine. I think I pay more attention to human feet and general movement "on the move" (good dairy goat judges judge the animals while walking slowly, not when primped and posed artificially) than I do their faces.

Harvey was right...you can tell and learn a lot by watching people move and walk, and by observing their shoes and feet. Very obese people, for example, tend to have lower legs that splay out at the knees. I haven't decided yet whether this is because they need extra stability for the added mass, or if the added mass of the thighs forces the lower legs (and therefore the feet as well) outward. Watching them walk is painful...you know that their knees must hurt, and that the more those knees hurt, the less they'll want to move around and exercise, creating a vicious cycle. Very musclular men who work out a lot move their upper bodies differently and with less mobility than leaner men do, as though constrained. High heels tend to predispose women to take a sort of stomping, stabbing motion with their walk, which makes their rear ends more noticable, but in my opinion, deprives them of a certain grace and flow, too. I've also noticed that people (usually men) who take what seem to be carefully measured, precise, and intentional steps tend to be pretty methodical and well, precise. People with flat feet stand very differently than others, with their toes pointed out and an entirely different stance.

So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I noticed my own walk. It's my right foot/leg, the side that's shorter, the side whose hip bothers me more. That hip swings out at a different angle than the other one. It has more limited range of motion in some directions, but in a normal walk, I can feel it moving differently, swinging out farther. Since there's snow, I watch my prints. They're not symmetrical. That right foot hits the ground at a different angle, and the hip joint moves as it hits the ground, as I put weight on that foot. It's a decidedly disagreeable sensation even though it doesn't hurt most of the time. I guess that at this point, I could throw myself a little pity party because I'd like to run and romp and climb and jump like I used to and now these activites are very limited (and I pay for them later), but that seems pretty trite. What I'm concerned about is the possibility that whatever's making my hip joint move in this funky way is going to *really* limit my mobility later on. if I believed in a god, I would scream to him that I need to be able to enjoy *something* in life, and I don't want to live in a little cubicle, dammit. I need to breathe the fresh air and feel close to the trees and melt into the outdoors. I want to be climbing trees when I'm 70 or 80 years old.

Screw it. Forget god. I don't care if I lose both my legs, I'm not giving that up. I lost the goats, I've lost so much else...I am not losing the entire outdoors, too. Ugh, I'm ridiculous, who said I was going to lose my legs, anyway??