Judith Jones-Ambrosini

It was a great achievement when, at age one or thereabouts, we took our first steps. Applause and cause for celebration were the order of the day!  We have been walking ever since.  There are so many reasons to perform this very basic act. It is a convenient mode of transportation that gets us from one place to another without any cost and without having to rely on anybody or anything except our own personal machine. It is the most natural form of exercise. And then there are a myriad of health benefits.

Some of you might be reading this from a place where shorts and T-shirts prevail and the concept of layering to keep warm is more or less vague. We had eighteen inches of snow fall yesterday just a few blocks from the mighty Atlantic Ocean in a small one-square mile town on the New Jersey coast. Every so often we get hit with a winter nor’easter similar to a summer master-of-the-universe hurricane.

Take notice of a child waking up in the morning.  He or she usually gives a big yawn, rubs the sand out of their eyes and then stretches arms and legs all the way out, top to bottom.  They then hop out of bed and rev up the energy of the day. Children capture the essence and importance of the morning stretch.  Do you?