The 113-Year Marathon
"You May Say I'm A Dreamer"
Turbulent times call for upping turbulence ab training and growing to meet headwinds and eddies where they are.
Headwind: A wind blowing from directly in front, opposing forward motion.
Eddy: A circular movement of water, counter to the main current, causing a small whirlpool.
When “the world” is chaotic for extended periods, so goes my life, my dogs, and my health. When I think of people as part of the neural network of every living thing, it makes sense that as goes the world, so goes every living thing—including immune systems.
A week ago the back of my knee turned purple for no injurious reason. A few hours later, a rapidly developing fatigue layered over flu symptoms. After a few days, the flu escaped and left behind a grossly misshapen back of my knee. I had zero pain and felt fine. I figured the knee would take a little longer and went about my regular activities without much concern. In other words, one of my coping skills is called “wait and see.” I use it to avoid confirming what I don’t want happening, is in fact, happening.
Eventually, I remembered I made a recent commitment to take care of my body as though I wanted to live a hundred and thirteen years. That had been the age I “heard” in my head on my thirteenth birthday when I realized I was old enough to die (yeah, I was that kid). Me, with a brunette version of Farrah-Fawcett-like hair, crop top, bell bottoms, and the end of my lifetime nagging at my heels. The unspoken thought proclamation I received was—“You’re going to live a hundred and thirteen years and that’s like, forever.”
As I have aged into my middle sixties, the proclamation soothes me when I think of the time wasted doom scrolling, wishing at windmills the world was better than it is, or the important, yet difficult years, I spent healing from harm. Of course, I took the proclamation for granted. We all do that to some degree—expecting one day to follow another, completely shushing thoughts of endings—stones skipping over deep oceans of the unknown.
When Covid, that ugly white elephant gift in our communal soiree, showed up in February with joint pain, it reminded me a hundred and thirteen years might not be easily handled by bones and human matter, and perhaps, I should treat my body as though it is living a marathon. Thus, this week, when my knee blew up, I remembered it was necessary to face the depths of the unknown.
Turbulent times call for upping turbulence ab training and growing to meet headwinds and eddies where they are—to expand on the theme of an elder post about riptides [access it HERE].
How have humans managed to survive the many self-created and natural riptides of our eventful past?
As I see it, some opposable-thumbed beings must have listened deeply to the rhythm of the experiential environment, followed along until there was a break in the momentum, and then hightailed it for shore. I imagine this was the scenario as the Crusades wound down, nearing Hitler’s end, the last bags of DDT were sold, and more recently, when vaccines for Covid became available. A lot, or a few, humans noted a downshift in headwinds and made choices—their momentum gaining as each stroke brought them closer to a familiar comforting, sublime, peaceful ease. An ease that tends to show up when the mortgage is paid, a diploma is in hand, the perfect job is acquired, a nasty boss quits, or a lifestyle issue is successfully managed.
Comforting, sublime, peaceful ease.
A loud phewwww…. as though a breeze cooled a sweaty brow…clearing the way until the next headwind or eddy ensnares our lives.
I know it exists. I’ve felt it for short blips. It arrives when I’m driving on an open road and don’t have a scheduled stop. I feel it as a release of a wrenching and fierce tension that had been dragging me toward a demanding and uncontrollable outside surge. A keep away game withholding living potential, possibility and …. dare I pen that four-letter “h” word …. hope? The easiest example is me at fourteen yearning for the shoreline from inside a riptide. Wholly living, in that case, surviving, appeared close enough to touch, but felt impossible to reach. When the energy of the water shifted, like a cork popping out of bottle, I zoomed toward shore, and hugged the life that had been saved as though it was important.
There are people who claim to have the peaceful-ease experience during meditation. Either they fake themselves into believing it’s the same as the real deal or I’m made differently. My fight or flight response is highly attuned to bullshit. I cannot tell myself a Saber-Toothed tiger is non-existent when the sensation of drool and hot breath are on the back of my neck.
Perhaps humans survived this long not only because they sensed when there was a break in a riptide’s eddy or a tiger moved on to graze elsewhere. Could be it wa also due to having a reflexive eyeroll when bullshit in the form of “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933) shows up.
My DNA has an exclamation point on that concept. Fear isn’t something to be put on a shelf and regularly dusted or trotted into a holding cell until trouble has passed. Experiencing fear over terrifying situations isn’t wrong. It’s what humans and other lifeforms, including flowers, have instinctively used to survive.
“Plants can sense a lot about their environment and it can cause them stress. Unlike most humans and animals though, when plants face predation, damage, or environmental changes they can’t run away and hide.
Sessile – or stalkless – plants evolved to be incredibly sensitive to their environment in order to survive.”
Bethany Nichols, Plants Have Feelings Too, BBC Earth
This big, beautiful planet is a vivid ecosystem displaying the art of managing, rather than avoiding, fear of the unknown. Every end result remains elusive until the final action, leaving how everything plays out up to who participates, who doesn’t, and the way the communal network of events and actions intersects.
We are continually swimming participants, even when we’re pretending we’re not paying attention to the current.
I’m reminded of a nightmarish dream I call “The Hatch.”
A woman wakes up in what appears to be a submarine or a research station deep beneath the sea. Unruly hair surrounds her distraught expression, a quick gasp further highlighting the impact the environment is having. Metal joints of the structure creak. An eerie, heavy echo creates a need for the woman to swallow in an attempt to pop her eardrums to bring a sense of equilibrium.
The small circular structure has windows in all directions. A hatch in the floor with a sturdy wheel mechanism implies opening it could be difficult and if she managed it, intense water pressure would likely flood the room in seconds. An image of drowning takes over the woman’s mind, her breath becoming increasingly agitated as she moves to stare out each window.
The sea is empty of fish and vegetation, as though this depth will not sustain life. Out the final window, the woman notices flickering lights in the far-off distance. This makes her situation seem more terrifying, as though something unknown in the depths is worse than being alone.
Inside the small submerged room, there is nothing life sustaining. No food or equipment, no life preserver (even though the idea this could be helpful is ridiculous), no switches or signage with references to hydraulics for a lifting mechanism. Nothing references an engine that might bring the station to the surface. The only knowns are working lights inside and the distant lights outside. Which seems to leave the woman two options. Sit inside a pressurized balloon with zero knowledge of the length of time until death arrives from thirst, starvation, and terror, or open the hatch and end the nightmare quickly. Flood the chamber and be done with it.
As the consideration moves through the woman’s mind, the concept of drowning becomes more real. Eventually this scares her to the other option, leading the woman to imagine screaming inside the empty sphere until she is too near death to scream, the last of her will to live drying out, along with her decaying, near-corpse.
Shaking uncontrollably, the woman turns the wheel. Well-oiled, it is silent as her hands tenderly remove the one thing protecting her from drowning.
Knowing, means knowing.
Yet, it doesn’t always mean doing.
I can talk myself out of doing without breaking a sweat. However, knowing with in-the-moment-fullness does make avoiding much harder. And, for me, avoiding seems to be near-impossible if I am committed to caring for my physical self as though living for 113-years is a marathon.
Afternote: I went to two different ERs and an ortho and wound up in the hospital for three days on IV antibiotics. No one was able to diagnose my knee other than a random infection with an undeterminable cause.
To finish this with a global perspective—using avoidance of reality as a roadblock to acting in the best interest of the planet and the communal nervous system is not how to care well for self and others. We are stranded on a small rock floating in the middle of one universe tucked inside a stratosphere filled with an impossible number of universes. We are *literally* in the middle of an existential deep ocean of the unknown.
May we treat ourselves, others, and the planet with care and let go of avoiding reality and needing to know why before acting. May we release the riptide of certainty, allowing the gentle current of possibility to activate our swim toward, rather than away from, peaceful ease.
John Lennon said it best…
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peaceYou may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one…
❤️Wonder Scroll directly after this image❤️
Also, would love to know how reader’s are doing. Hope no one is visiting ERs or being dosed with antibiotics…unless you need it! Please share your living memoir stories in the comment section ❤️
Wonder Scroll:
This Beautiful Fanstastic:
9 Recent Science Breakthroughs: Curing sickle cell anemia, pancreatic cancer vaccine, growing a spine (maybe Congress will too lol)!, finding the root cause of lupus…
https://theweek.com/health-and-science/1019386/recent-scientific-breakthroughs
Multiple heart emojis! Thanks, eMMe! ox
Glad you are home and still swimming, walking, floating, galumphing gloriously toward 113, turning unknowable wheels, and trusting the process. May that be a metaphor for all neuro-connected bits and pieces of stardust. Carry on!