Back in dinosaur times (circa 1998 probably) on a family trip to New Brunswick, my 2 years older cousin showed up for a visit driving an incredible car. Laurena has always been the coolest person known to my sister and I and at the time, my family was travelling around in a clunky VW van which my 16 year old self (stupidly) thought of as the lamest vehicle in existence. As a result, that vintage MGB automatically became the coolest car to ever exist and it became my envious wish to some day have one.
Fast forward 32 years and I still consider both my cousin and MGs among the coolest things ever. Twenty plus years career experience mean I’ve got mechanical engineering skills, but current life in Toronto doesn’t come with a dedicated parking spot for our practical Subaru let alone the indoor garage space needed for a vintage car. However, I can claim full ownership of a fairly nifty biomachine that I carry around with me everywhere. Since 50 seems to come up a lot in our culture as being ‘officially old’ for most women, this 1972 system can also claim to be rapidly approaching vintage status.
The last 6 years of circus training has taught me a lot about what this system I move around in is capable of. As a biomechanical engineer, I naturally think of it in terms of system performance and thinking of how the process of caring and maintaining it will affect the level it can perform at over the upcoming years. Getting older is a privilege and I know that I won’t be able to control everything – life is turbulent after all. This space seems like a good place to work on a more detailed maintenance log about how I’m fixing her up and trying to keep her in good working condition.
