A Controlled Environment

After resting yesterday I am recharged and wake up this morning with the rooster as usual.  The sun is just beginning to peek over the mountain as I sit up, still bleary eyed in my bed.  I love me bedroom. Its soft. I am surrounded by muted tones of white on the walls and sheer cotton white drapes on my windows and wavy patterned sheers on the French doors at the foot of my bed.  There is plenty of sunlight in my room throughout the day so I a have lush over grown ferns and flowering geraniums framing the French doors. It reminds me a little of Maurice  Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are when Max begins dreaming in his room, a mysterious, wild forest and sea grows out of his imagination, and Max sails to the land of the Wild Things. The Wild Things are fearsome-looking monsters, but Max conquers them by "staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once", and he is made "the king of all wild things"....my bedroom is as if I have blended the indoors with the outdoors. On a cold day I can sit and look out over the valley and to the mountain while sung and warm and at the same time feeling like I am outside and part of the earth.  My bedroom is both easy to fall asleep in and easy to wake up to.  This March morning as I gaze out over what should be the green pasture all I see is white. "Ugh!" I say out loud waking Eric.
"What's wrong?" He asks.
"It freaking snowed last night!!!" I whine "I thought it was supposed to be spring!"
But pleasant outdoor weather is not so important to me these days.....
I have been a distance runner for years and years...and years.  I ran every day.  I ran when I was happy, I ran when I was sad or stressed.  I just always ran.  The week my dad died I think I logged 97 miles.  In my grief and shock I would go out for a run on the trail then get to a place where it met with a road and call my son Seth. "Bring me a peanut butter sandwich" I would say.  He would. Then I'd run another ten or so miles call him again "Bring me some chicken and some Gatorade."  I would order. He would.  It would get dark, my son would pick me up somewhere about 20 miles from our house. I was exhausted beyond belief….beyond my grief. I would go to bed and we would do it all again the next day and the next until I had ‘run out’ all that part of the grief.
My favorite run is a section of the Appalachian Trail near my house.  The trail is always beautiful no matter the season. I can loose myself up there. I don't have to worry about cars or which turn to take or how to avoid an awkward encounter with one of my "ex laws" who just live right down the street.  In fact I become so lost?...lost isn't the right word…its more like I become a part of the trail...I can feel the pulse of the earth. My feet seem to think for themselves as they navigate a natural obstacle course of rocks, holes and fallen trees. I couldn't think as fast as my feet are skimming over the earth when I run. I am just sort of moving with her and think of nothing.  When I encounter another human I am always shocked "Hey! What are you doing on my trail?!?!?!" I think but never say in fact trail people are usually very friendly. Around May and through June I run into many thru-hikers. Thru-hikers are those brave or crazy souls who commit to hiking the entire Appalachian Trail which starts at Springer Mountain in Georgia and ends at  Mount Katahdin in Maine. 2,000 miles! Where I live is the halfway mark so the hikers are showing their true colors by then...plus you can spot them by their, let's call it their "earthy" smell.
Well today I won't have to worry about slippery conditions for trail running or any other running.  I broke a couple of vertebrate in my back, didn't know it  ignored the pain that I thought was tolerable and thought I probably had just a pulled muscle, ran for a year, totally damaged my back and now I am too injured to run.  I thought it would be devastating not being able to run but I have discovered the joys of working out in a controlled climate.
There is something almost magical about being able to swim in a warm pool where every time I turn my head to take a breath I see with one eye the blue warm water and with the other eye the frigid cold gray snow dusted day through the wall of windows at the gym.  I love swimming and I’m good at it or maybe natural at it is more accurate.  I can't ever remember not knowing how to swim. As I count laps at the pool my whole body and spirit is transported back to about 1972 when I would swim hours upon hours at my grandfather’s pool. Being underwater was where I was the most comfortable in the whole world. I couldn't wait for summer so I could hide under the safety of the water.  Everything was softer under there. I didn't make any noise so I was pretty safe in knowing I wouldn't accidentally piss off my dad and have to endure a beating and the part I hated even more than the beating...the shaming. Under the water my body didn't feel so fat, sluggish and heavy as I saw myself to be on land. I could pretend I was slim and beautiful, no one could really see me, I couldn't hear anyone yelling or laughing at me and I could fly....I am back in the lap pool in the year 2011 now.  I snap out of that time travel and work on my stroke.  Here in this foreign watery environment I find I can become one with the water just like I became one with the earth on the trail. Head down, always exhale when my face is in the water. Rotate my hips and legs turn my head, take a breath.  My head never rises out of the water to breathe. The movement and position of my head create a trough in the water all I have to do is trust that this air filled trough is really there.  When I do its as if I am never leaving the water to take a breath...I am breathing under the water.

I get up out of bed. "Eric...will you do my farm chores this morning?  It’s cold."
"You used to go running when it was about 20 degrees colder than it is now AND windy." he teased me.
"Yes, I know."  I said" but I am rather enjoying being kind and gentle with my body these days...things are more balanced I want to keep heading in this more kind, softer direction."
"What are you talking about?"  Eric asks.
"Never mind. Thanks for doing my chores. I’m off too a world I thought was only pretend in 1972 but it really does exist I just couldn't see it before because everything was so out of control."
"What?" Eric asks.
"I’m off to the gym."