I know first-hand about “use it or lose it” syndrome. After I stopped doing pull-ups due to a shoulder injury, when I was finally ready to try again, I could barely get myself above the bar.
I used to be able to make myself understood speaking French, but having left Switzerland decades ago I’m now reduced to little more than “Bonjour” and “Au revoir.”
We all experience “use it or lose it.” The musical instrument you once played that you can no longer coax a decent note from. You stayed home during the pandemic and afterwards your social skills had rusted. You can no longer solve for X in that algebra problem you once dashed off in your sleep.
It’s natural to lose skills and capabilities if we don’t practice them. But what a sudden and horrific surprise the loss can be.
Like the other day when I tried to whistle a tune.
I was never one of these nonstop “whistle while you work” kind of dudes, but I used to be a serviceable whistler. I could sound out notes through my teeth or by pursing my lips. I could render recognizable songs.
This time I blew a puff of wind. I tried again. My whistle sounded like a sigh. I tried again and again—nothing but air.
I immediately concluded that I’d gotten too old to whistle. My lips too thin, my facial muscles too weak, my mouth too dry. Yet another indignity of aging thrust upon me.
But I was determined not to go down so easily. I fought back. I began to practice. I blew air and blew air until my mouth and lips sagged with fatigue.
I tried again the next day. I eventually produced a faint whistle, as quiet and lonesome as a distant train. And then I hit a real note. Pretty soon another one. I was doing it. I was whistling again.
I started with simple songs: “Mary had a Little Lamb” and “Three Blind Mice.” I didn’t make all the notes; some came out as air, but I was getting better.
I progressed to Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “59th Street Bridge Song” (Feelin’ Groovy); and I was beginning to feel groovy because I was getting my whistling groove back.
I practiced and practiced and then I went for the motherlode of songs to whistle: “The Colonel Bogey March” from the classic movie Bridge Over the River Kwai.
I could only do a few bars before my whistle faded, but I’m okay with that. I was back. I was back, baby! And this time I’m going to use it not lose it.
