On my 50th birthday I experienced an unexpected and unwelcomed reckoning: my body wasn’t always going to be able to do everything I wanted it to do. That morning, having trained for a few months, my friend Renée and I got on our bikes and took off for a 100-mile ride. We rode along Canyon Del Rey to the bike path, turned north, then right on a farm road and right again on Reservation Road, before peddling back toward the Pacific along the Salinas-Monterey Highway (It was less dangerous to ride a bike on that piece of road back then). We got to my house in time for lunch. Grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches gave us fuel aplenty for the rest of the ride.

The next day, my neck hurt. I mean, it really hurt. My doctor informed me I’d developed arthritis. What? That was for old people, and 50 is not old! But apparently my neck had become old or just too worn out to continue to ride a road bike with the downward curving handlebars. That birthday ride was the last time I straddled my beloved, dark green, custom-made bike named Forest Mar. Eventually, I gave it to a friend. At nearly 67, I miss that beautiful bicycle still. I miss climbing up Aguajito Road — that long, hard pull. Riding up a hard hill like that would allow nearly any emotional upheaval I was going through to disappear. Trouble exited my body via sweat and exhalations. And just as much, I miss the fast, effortless glides downhill, the roads I’d take as fast as my fear would allow — once clocking myself going 38 mph down South Boundary Road. How I loved tucking my body down low, bringing my legs close to the bar, feeling the wind on my face, watching the scenery go by like flipping the pages of a book. Being able to create speed through my own motor, my two-wheeled machine and the slant of the hill is one of the most liberating experiences I’ve ever known. Online I read, “Energy in all forms cannot be created or destroyed, energy can only change from one form to another.” Yet to be a contributing agent to that change in such an unequivocal way is a powerful thing, indeed.

For me, movement is nearly akin to breathing. My body wants to go from here to there. My waist wants to twist and bend; my hips want to wiggle and shake. In her poem, “Homage to My Hips,” Lucille Clifton wrote that her “hips need space to move around in. they don’t like to be held back … they go where they want to go they do what they want to do.” I feel the same way whether I’m actually able to move as I want to or not. Desire and ability sometimes stand a long distance away from each other.

Luckily, I’m resilient. Or desperate. Take your pick. Adaptation is clearly one of the most important skills to help us navigate the aging process. So when I could no longer ride my bike, I got me a pair of hiking boots, went to Jacks Peak Park, conquered my fear of mountain lions, and began walking.

It wasn’t so bad. In fact, I fell in love with nature as I never could on a bicycle. It was mostly while walking up and down Iris Trail and along Pine Trail that I wrote my book “Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life.” For me, the experience of walking is more deeply spiritual than riding a bike.

Not only was the forest full of pine trees, loamy scents, birds, deer and shadows that spoke to my soul, but because my pace was far slower than when on a bike, I got to notice my surroundings.

As Franz Kafka said, “The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” The earth wasn’t the only one rolling in ecstasy.

But now, after more than a decade and a half of being off my bike, I’m just after the going from here to there, one foot in front of the other. When a foot problem made walking much distance at all impossible, I got into a swimming pool.

There I ride a noodle, unabashedly unashamed about how silly I look doing so. And there, also, I’ve had the great and unanticipated pleasure of making a new friend. La Verne walks through the water while I ride.

Adaptation gave me more than I could have imagined. La Verne and I laugh together. Since we’ve been spending time in the water together for a couple of years now and have come to trust each other, she also holds some secrets for me.

That makes adaptation worth far more than the price.

After last year’s foot surgery, I began walking again. Slowly, at first, oh, so slowly, and initially — wanting speed and distance — that was frustrating.

And then something happened—once again, the unexpected revitalized me. The slower I walked, the more there was to observe — to see, hear, and smell, and to interact with even in subtle ways.

That led to connections being made that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and that led to writing and teaching and art-making that wouldn’t have happened without making those connections, without thinking new thoughts. I learned that not only does the mind move differently when walking, but the mind moves even more differently when the pace is slow.

Finally, I resumed walking 4.5 miles, so happy to be on the trail again for a couple of hours. Every cell in my body began to vibrate and sing. Until adaptation called my name again.

A problem has occurred necessitating another surgery. Do I catch a theme here? You bet I do! It’s a song with few words: “Adaptation, baby. Come on, you’ve got to be resilient now.”

I don’t have to like it but I do have to accept the limits of this body and learn new ways to thrive. The less I resist, the less difficult it is to move through what’s challenging.

But I’m a slow learner and this all takes time, patience and time.