Rolling

The gate fell open. Having forgotten what it felt like to wander, he stood there for a moment, not sure whether he should step through or wait for his breath to come back, his confidence to return. But then, just as suddenly as the gate fell open, he burst forward, surprising even himself. Before his mind could catch up with his body, he was running. The breath came in fast gasps and he coughed. He had to slow down. But he kept moving away from his previous confinement. Before him lay mountains of work undone, trips to take, dragons to meet, dilemmas to consider, quandaries to wade into. No matter. He was moving, finally, again. He had some time. Not much, but a moment or two at least. The air was crisp, the light sharp. There was a storm on the wind. That much he knew. It was time aim his intention and to marshal his agreements. The only obstacle in front of him was his fear, his self-inflicted limitation. He let the cool air of dawn fill his lungs, let the oxygen feed and fuel his brain, let his body re-ignite his sleeping desires. It was time, and movement was a luxury given only to the living.

Incremental

Comes a time in a life when the brain has to recalibrate.

When I began to play adult soccer in my mid forties, for example, I was shocked at the discrepancy between what my brain "thought" I could do -- sprint to the ball -- and what I could "actually" do -- lumber like some immense herbivorous dinosaur to where the younger guys had already gathered around the ball.

This is what I called the mid-life performance shock. Between the time I had been playing as a young man and the post child-rearing mid-life man, things had changed. It doesn't seem possible to me that they had changed so much, but the decline was undeniable.

So, the current form of this re-calibration comes as a bout of pneumonia. Yes, I have succumbed to a serious bacterial infection that has shaken the foundations of my strength and health. I have to watch as muscles earned over years of training on the bike atrophy, how conditioning fades like last years rose, how I have no power over the body trying to purge itself of infection.

Of course my over-active brain has this illness over, history, long-done by now.

Here's an example: A week after I first felt sick, I was scheduled to do a bike race. I actually told people that I would be well enough (mind you, this is pneumonia) to race within a week. I was going to do a time trial, an all-out effort requiring full function of heart, lungs, and muscles, a few days after coughing up blood from a pneumonia infection. Ha!

Yes, I know, a bit irrational, but it's how my brain still operates.

I am upset that I still cannot sleep because of the fever and pain. I "should" be able to get over this thing.

The reality, the sharp, irrefutable reality, is that healing, again, will happen on its own time. My urge to cough is going to continue until it runs its course. The fever cycles and the pain are going to hang around until my immune system fights them off.

They whole process is going to go slower than I think it should progress.

Dems just the facts, sorry to say.

Incremental: it's what for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

To Take a Breath

More than sex, coffee, new bike parts, or a day off, I just wanted to take a breath. I just wanted one deep breath that I could relish without scissoring into a coughing fit.

In my infected state, if I drew more than even the slightest bit of air, my reflexes set into motion a honking hacking round of coughing. I had lost my voice from the involuntary whooping on the inhale. This cycle had kept me awake for the past seven nights. The usual ratio was four short breaths to a coughing spasm. I had strained muscles in my back and abdomen trying to get the fluids out of my bronchial tubes and lungs.

I was beyond broken and wept openly at the pain and helplessness and lack of rest.

Then came the antibiotics. The glorious antibiotics.

Last night, the cough reflex took a break, and I was able to breath. One breath. Another. I fell into sleep and even began to dream, a simple thing, but when one has been deprived of it for more than a few nights, more precious than anything that passes for ambition in the world of the healthy.

So, I take in breath today. I will pass for normal in the world of work and hustle. But I remember still, the desire that comes when it is not available, the desire for a simple breath of life sustaining air.

Delirium

It has been almost two weeks. This fever, chills, hacking cough, and resulting lack of sleep have made life more than a bit surreal. Every fourth breath or so sends me into a spasm of honking coughs. My head and stomach muscles ache with the strain.

But that's all just the physical sensations. The things I see in my head are what really disturb me.

You won't believe it, but I think I dreamed that Sarah Palin made it a point to endorse Donald Trump for president. I can hear you snickering. I know. That is pretty bizarre, even for someone wracked with fever, insomnia, and chronic fatigue.

But this vision was so real. She was standing at a lectern in a sparkly outfit and she spouted characteristic Palinisms like "We need to quit footing the bill for the sqirmishes of oil rich nations," and even stranger rants like "Well, and then, funny, ha ha, not funny, but now, what they’re doing is wailing, 'Well, Trump and his Trumpeters, they’re not conservative enough.' " Whatever that means. Then there was the "He’s got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debate on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and club hide. They didn’t want to talk about these issues until he brought ’em up. In fact, they’ve been wearing a, this, political correctness kind of like a suicide vest." Political correctness as a suicide vest? 

I know, crazy. Only a fever-wracked mind could make this up. There is no way it would float out there in the grounded world of health and rational consciousness. This fever-driven vision persisted and got even more bizarre. Palin went on to really unify her audience with its characterization as "Right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religion, and our Constitution." Wow.

In my delirium, people actually seemed to understand what she was saying, to eat it up even. It must have the psyche working something out, some toxin leaving the body. It was trying to get rid of something so I could begin the long haul back to health. 

When I finally made it to morning, I couldn't shake the strangeness of it all.

Thank God this fever will expire eventually and I can get to a world that makes some sense. 

Off the Rails

The semester was just lifting off, and I was hanging on by my fingernails as it gained momentum, when the bug struck.

Now, this is no ordinary bug. This is the kick-your-butt-around-the-block-for-warm-up bug. It's the fever/body ache/lung/throat/head/stomach/sinus bug, the phlegm/nausea/can't sleep or breathe bug.

That's all what it is, but the worst part of it is that it also robs its sufferers of their brains.

I honestly cannot think to remember what it is I am supposed to be doing for work, house, bills, personal hygiene or any kind of daily function.

Of course, as I sit here still in the throws of the bug's effects, the semester has left the station and me behind it. This is not a question of willingness, but of ability.

For the first time in my thirty years of teaching I may be incapable of running my classes.

I guess this time comes eventually for everyone. Up until now, bugs like this come and go. This one seems to here for a long haul. It shows no signs of giving up as the days and nights pass.

I can only hope that I find my brain before it is too late to repair the damage.

Eating Cake

My mental wheels have been falling into ruts lately. Crisis has a way of forcing either/or, unilateral thinking, I guess, because I feel the need to decide, to act, to get moving.

For example, a friend of mine recently went on the lam, or, as his PO said, "absconded."

Now, that is what it is, for  better or worse. He has his reasons I guess.

But  can't help but wonder why.

On the one hand, he had the personal autonomy to "decide," to "get his shit together," to "pull himself up by his bootstraps." We all know this explanation of poverty as a choice not to work, as being the poor person's "fault" for not having the gumption to get out there and start a business to break the cycle of poverty by force of will.

Let's call this the "personal responsibility" camp.

On the other hand, my friend had social forces and inertia aligned against him. As a convicted felon, doors closed to him. Resumes and applications went unanswered, conversations died when people learned of his status as ex-con; he had lost the support of his family. In general, he wore a scarlet letter that earned him hard knocks.

In short, this guy, and others in his situation, or anyone coming from a socially marginalized position, faces an uphill climb against lack of opportunity, proximity to crime, difficult family relationships, and low expectations. This group does not share the entitlement that goes along with being a privileged member of society. Anyone who thinks they know what this is like who hasn't been there is full of caca.

Let's call this the "social product" camp.

Now, the problem here is that both of these camps contain germs of validity, and it is pointless to argue that only one is the sole cause of his actions. This man is a complex mix of both.

Throw in struggle with addictions, mental and physical illness, fear of returning to prison, and being fed up with trying to live within the system, and you may be approaching a more realistic understanding of why he did what he did.

In order to do that though, one has to skip the track of either/or thinking, of not being able to have cake and eat it too, of admitting that truth travels within both liberal and conservative lines of reasoning.

Such a leap means that one has to venture beyond the camps of easy answers and begin to listen to others with whom one disagrees.

One has to get off the belief that cake only comes to those who have it.

January

The ice on the windshield is like sandpaper as I run the scraper from side to side, laying my weight into the stokes. The ice is thick and doesn't want to surrender its grip on my windshield.

I don't blame it. Ice doesn't get much opportunity here in southern Arizona. It's January, the short taste of cold here. The air is pristine, having been rinsed by recent rains. It's clear enough to make out details of mountain ranges fifty miles distant.

So, yes, the ice is stubborn, but it's a fair trade for the sweet air, crisp with frost.

I have to confess that I like the dark. When the cat wakes me at 4:30, I am more than ready to get up and moving. The chill helps. It does not reward lingering. For introverts, a world where everyone else is home sleeping is paradise.

I go down to a coffee shop where I have the place to myself until the sun comes up. Once there, I entertain the rare glimpses of an inner life. I hear a heart still hungry for love, a desire to be free to express what bubbles up inside, see a path to happiness that I might follow. These days are rare and sweet and will soon come to an end. The light and heat are coming back, and that is happening earlier and earlier.

Soon, the air will warm enough to prevent frost, the sky will lighten enough to wake the others, and the air will again take on the warmth of desert spring. For now, though, it's quiet, dark, and mine. Conditions are right for a moment of quiet before the noise of a new semester drowns out even the strongest of inner hopes.

I need to harvest these nuggets, to gather them together, and then to remember when the heat presses me to forget.