A Magic Carpet Ride to Anyplace Other than the Couch

A Magic Carpet Ride to Anyplace Other than the Couch

It’s been almost six weeks since I was in the hospital, which I talked about in last month’s blog post. And just about six weeks since I was able to move my head, neck, and right arm/shoulder normally. Right now I’m barely getting started on lymphatic drainage massage and physical therapy for all of those things as I wait to hear about the upcoming radiation therapy. The first 10 days post-op found me laid out flat in bed or on the couch, since I didn’t feel well enough to get up and around much (a 2-3 hour visit to the hospital on Day 7 knocked me flat for the rest of the day, after which I went to bed). On the plus side, I have had a lot of time to read, and that’s been my magic carpet ride to anyplace other than the couch.

Leaning on Comfort…is Not the Issue Right Now, But….

Someone over at Fable recommended The Nature Fix and somewhere along the way I also heard or read about this book by Michael Easter, The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. The title had me wondering if I’ve been kind of sliding into a routine of some sort where I don’t do things to shake up that routine. Leaning on comfort…is not the issue right now, but there’s nothing like getting some kind of diagnosis to shake you out of your general sense of complacency, right?

It’s true that I gave up dangerous sports (bike racing, rock climbing) a long time ago and my reluctance to even get on my bike in a city where I fear for my life because of the traffic could be excused as self-preservation rather than avoiding discomfort, but still, sometimes you think about things. I mainly thought, gee, when is the last time I went somewhere and did something where I was away from other people, out of the range of communication, not relying on a GPS signal and so on? I love being able to stay in touch with everyone and rely on Google Maps a lot, but there is something to be said for having a paper map and knowing how to use it (and going somewhere to do that).

A Nice Escape

The book was, for me, primarily a nice escape out into the wilderness, namely the wilds of Alaska. Easter and two other men embarked on a hunting trip for caribou up past the Arctic Circle in the northwestern part of the state. His descriptive writing takes you into the heart of the landscape, which was especially refreshing on a hot summer’s day — kind of like reading Scandinavian noir in July. Some of the descriptions once they downed the caribou were too clinically graphic for me, but they were very well-written.

Misogi

Part of the great food for thought from Easter’s book was the concept of misogi. Traditionally defined as a cleansing ritual for Shinto practitioners, Dr. Marcus Elliott, founder of P3 Peak Performance Project in Santa Barbara, uses the term to refer to taking on physical and mental challenges as a way of helping us realize our potential. Given P3’s work with elite athletes, the concept fits in nicely with that work, but it has useful implications for those of us who aren’t elite athletes, too.

Dr. Elliott lays out a few ground rules for his iteration of misogi. Basically, you have to do something: extremely physically hard (50/50 chance of failing), but where you won’t die; it should be quirky, and…you aren’t allowed to talk about it on social media. Failure is irrelevant. As Easter writes, “Nobody wants to fail but it doesn’t really matter if you do, because you get all the benefits of your challenge even if you don’t complete it the way you had originally planned.” (Comfort Crisis, pages 41-42).

Easter draws an interesting parallel between the concept of misogi and that of the Hero’s Journey. You have a call to adventure (set up by yourself, but still); adversity; and return with newly-acquired skills and knowledge, along with a “clearer sense of place…in the world.” (Comfort Crisis, page 50) For a more detailed description of the Hero’s Journey and my attempt at applying it to the movie Ordinary People, see here.

My Own Personal Misogi

Two weeks after surgery we decided to get away for a quick one-night escape. I felt that getting into nature would lift my spirits (something backed up by The Nature Fix). I guess I was hoping it would be a magic CARpet ride (sorry!) that would somehow miraculously inject me with so much energy that I would feel completely recovered from everything. Well, one thing I can say for high hopes is that it’s good to have them. Being in the countryside near Turin, close to the Alps, did lift my spirits, a lot, and sitting by a pool in the sunshine, something totally uncharacteristic for me, felt wonderful. But I was also a little bit dejected when, earlier in the day, we came upon this cool staircase cut into the side of steep hill.

I should clarify. I wasn’t dejected because I saw the staircase. The dejection came shortly after. I saw the staircase and knew I had to climb it. Still feeling very weird (aside from the surgery itself my system is surely getting adjusted to the new medication), it wasn’t easy to go for even a slow, relaxed walk on flat ground. And here was a steep staircase with a thin metal chain as a railing. It was my own personal misogi. Perfect. I’m violating the last of the rules outlined by Dr. Elliott by even talking about it, but then it wasn’t planned, nor is walking up a staircase all that quirky.

Around the First Bend

I slowly made my way up the steps and around the first bend. Far beyond that bend, up several more stairs, there was a bench in the sunshine, beckoning as though it had been placed there especially for us. I’m not super scared of heights, but also not super unafraid of heights, and sometimes what happens is I freak myself out and then that’s it, I can’t continue. Here I started to feel freaked out, but not because of the height. It was more worry that I might get dizzy and fall. Breaking a femur would have been an express ride straight into an even bigger discomfort zone.

Then, unsurprisingly, I started panicking about walking back down. What to do? Why, sit down and do a butt walk down the steps. I slid my way down each step, slowly, until I reached the bottom and could stand again. Cue the dejection. No top of the staircase. No bench in the sun. But also no fall. And, by the end of the day, I had walked almost three miles. It was the first of single days here and there where I felt better. Hopefully, I have many more to come in the future.

Nature Can Fix It

Nature can fix it, at least according to the information provided in The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams. A perfect counterbalance to the fairly macho energy in Comfort Crisis, this is a lovely book to listen to as you take a walk in the outdoors. Williams delves into a lot of the research related to the benefits of spending time in nature, including increased creativity (one caveat: you have to leave your phone at home). Five hours per month seems to be the minimum amount necessary to get those positive gains, with rural experiences providing more advantages than urban ones (as one would expect). Even hospital patients who have a window heal faster, which made me even more grateful for my hospital bed closest to the window last month.

Readers, how often do you spend time in nature? Do you find it makes you more creative?

A Heart in the Sky

More than once I’ve heard amazing stories about connections to loved ones after they’ve died or when they’re close to that time. The latest was from someone I know whose mother was in the end stages of a long illness. The daughter recounted how she had asked her mother repeatedly to send her a sign, specifically a heart, so she would know her mom had heard her, despite being unable to respond. The morning her mom passed, the daughter was outside, on the way to the hospital. She looked up and saw a cloud, a heart in the sky. Her phone rang. It was her father calling to tell her that her mom was gone. RIP M. You deserved a better hand than the one you got.

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