‘Stop participating: My perfectly passive senior’s afternoon’

The sun is over the yardarm and it’s now past midday. All the chores are done, the meals are prepped, so it’s time for my concept of a senior’s lazy afternoon. What should I do?

Well, it’s now time for a senior to rest, to choose quiet, lazy activities and passive pastimes. For example, I could rest on my bed and practise breathing: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Or I could do yoga – focusing on passive resistance to acquiring a bad back.

I think of all the energetic tasks and activities I am not doing right now and smile. I am not mountaineering or jet-skiing – way too hyperactive! I am not jogging or cycling in lycra short-shorts, displaying ‘thunder thighs’. I am not surfing in a shiny black wetsuit, looking like a tasty, overgrown seal to the hungry sharks around the Australian coastline.

A little sport can be a dangerous thing, plus it’s bad for seniors’ sacroiliac joints. If you wish to participate in such active pursuits, you have not quite mastered the concept of a senior’s lazy afternoon.

I could be lying on the couch or in a recliner, reading, crafting, watching television or listening to music. Or I could be sitting in the shade in the garden, or by a river or lake, just breathing: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

For true non-participation, cut corners on chores and do no housework after noon. Just rest, especially during the second-half of Australia’s scorching-hot summer. Have a siesta, dodge the undertaker and be un-hyperactive. No one needs an official uniform for this; seniors can wear what we fancy! This is our time of life to enjoy.

Any senior can experience the genuine beauty and peace of a lazy afternoon. Go on, give it a go. And if anyone imparts any extraneous demands, simply tell them, “Later. I’ll get back to you on that.”