The Inner life
I took a long walk about 10 years ago, and I've talked about it a lot recently. It was a time when I felt a little unsettled, and so I walked a lot, sometimes 8-10 miles a day. I had a whim one day about walking across the entire Puget Sound region, and a couple of days later I did it.
If you know the Seattle area, I started north and west of Lake Washington and ended south and east of it. Most of this walk was on the east side of the lake, and the total was 30 miles exactly. It was about 9-1/2.hours of walking, and another hour or so of breaks, so it was a long day.
I bring it up, of course, to point out to some people that I used to be that guy, and that's why this daymare of post-Covid life is so depressing. I have to rest after going to get the mail, no joke. And the mailbox is nowhere near 30 miles away.
But I've been thinking about this long walk for another reason lately. Several friends were curious as to what would and did happen during that time in terms of, I suppose, a spiritual experience of some sort (broadly defining "spiritual"). A catharsis or epiphany or, you know. Something life changing. Like in Wild.
I tried, but nope. I mostly just focused on the walking, admiring the view and trying not to get run over. It was a great experience to have, but it didn't open my eyes to anything other than aggressive bikers on certain trails who didn't appreciate pedestrians (I walked on my side! Assholes).
It doesn't seem plausible that during these 67 years, with all the big life events I've experienced, the most significant is this illness. But I think it is.
I just can't find the Wild-ness here. I can't align with the disabled community, because mine is invisible and it just feels embarrassing and selfish. I can walk. I can feed and care for myself. I'm reasonably coherent (it's tricky). I just can't do much.
So, yeah, no. Actually, I think it would feel performative and narcissistic to try to find profundity in this really odd and boring illness. It's changed my life, for sure. Why it would matter to anyone else is a question I have, since my tendency (compulsion?) is to write about everything, dig around until I can find a few shiny things to entertain you with.
Oh, hey. I did write this a few months ago (think West Side Story).
I feel shitty
With self pity
I feel shitty, and gritty, and old.
I feel shitty
And I really wish I weren’t so cold.
Just saying. I have a few jokes, that's about it. The rest is just kind of a mess.
My cousin fell off his bike a few years ago, and will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. I bet he has some thoughts.
And I have friends with MS and RA, and I don't want to get all dramatic but cancer, anyone? My thing is just different. Quiet. Not visible so much, as I say.
It's personal, you get it. We all have silent challenges. It's still huge, to me. I might not have so many profound things to say about it, that's all.
But I spent a lot of years, beginning in my late 40s, working hard to be as physically fit as possible going into these years, and I was. I was in better shape in my 50s than at any other time in my life. I have some heartbreak over that.
Self-improvement has many forms, though. I've watched over 150 hours of video lectures on history, mostly, but also physics, logic, economics...this is the heyday of the autodidact, and I've now got a chunk of space in my brain filled with stuff I knew nothing about.
I can explain how the Born rule relates to the Schrödinger equation. I can tell you who my favorite English kings were (first, they were all monsters. But Edward III, Henry V, and Richard I are fascinating to me). I can go on and on about Catherine of Valois or Eleanor of Aquitaine.
I could bend your ear a bit about the Black Death. A big deal.
I don't think of this as a silver lining at all – I'm just coping the best way I can, trying to keep my brain alive for as long as possible (it seems important). But I do understand a little better, maybe, how exercising our minds can also get some of those good neurotransmitters floating around upstairs. I mean, Socrates knew that. I could tell you about it.
At the same time, I can't help but want to find useful moments in this trek that might inform lives in some minor way. I don't think I need a walkabout to get enlightenment. I miss it, but at the moment I can't do anything about it, so I do something else.
Many, many something elses. And a positive note is that I'm not in much danger of being run over (it was more of a problem than you might think).
I also have opinions about bikers. Ask me.
