Totally Confused

My body utterly confuses me.  I am a brain that rides atop a device completely foreign.  Somehow the brain functions pretty well on it's own, but there are lots of things the body doesn't do.  It doesn't run properly.  It has no coordination for dance.  The skin burns easily or worse, gets covered by freckles with just a bit of sun exposure.  The nose doesn't lay straight, needs a full reworking, just to gain the ability to breathe.  The feet are too big.

But now that I'm trying to get the body in shape so I can climb Mt. Hood, I can see that a connection is necessary.  After all, if I don't trust my body, why would I have it take me up to the top of a mountain?  Plus, it might be nice to dance with Joe at a wedding.  Or run with the kids. 

At the moment, what has me totally confused is how much to eat so I will lose weight.  My handy app worked great the first week (down 10 pounds!), but now seems to have turned on me.  I faithfully type in every speck of food I eat, how much I exercise, suffer through hunger that is equal parts mental, and not only have I stopped losing, but I think I'm up a couple of pounds.  The only conclusion is that the app might have me eating too little.  Curse you!

So I've adjusted the settings to add a couple hundred calories and I'll try that for a week.  Maybe if I can make some sense of this dilemma, it'll be like a conversation starter.

Brain, meet body.
Body, meet brain.

Fighting Weight

I’ve known this since I stated out loud my goal to climb Mt. Hood.  I am not unaware or naïve.  I know that this endeavor, to climb the highest peak in Oregon, is more likely be a success if I can drop some weight.  I am not one of those people who claim to be healthy even though I am overweight.  Two blood tests at the naturopath confirm I have high triglycerides.  Too much sugar, too many carbs.  I’ve sat with this information for months and months and months doing nothing at all.  Until Monday.

Monday I started using a new app on my iPhone.  It tracks calories in, calories out.  I’ve lost 8 pounds since then. 

What’s the magic?

None of course.  I am hungry a lot.  I walk two miles every day.  I don’t eat the kids’ Halloween candy that thankfully is almost gone.

But so far, so good.  It’s a little weird, because this time I don’t feel like I’m going to die which is how I usually feel when I’m on a diet.  Irrationally, my brain tells me that controlling what I eat is like depriving myself and deprivation leads to death.  Craziness, right? 

I figure overthinking is going to jinx my efforts, so forget I said anything.  If I don’t notice I’m losing weight, if I just see it out of the corner of my eye but do not turn my head, maybe I can sneak up on this.

Story

What’s the big idea for this quest of mine?  Why does the goal even matter?   What’s really behind the idea?  And since an idea is really just an abstract concept, then what’s the concept? 

In writing terms, concept = question.  So what’s the big question behind my lifelong aspiration to climb Mt. Hood?

Today the question is:  What if I have a body and spirit that will drive me up 5,239 vertical feet to the summit of Mt. Hood? 

The question is not do I have these things, because clearly I don’t at the moment.  But what would life be like for a person who can do that?  Does she advance through life full of confidence and strength?  Can she work a full day, be a good mom and wife, and still squeeze in a life between work and bedtime?  Is her head clear?  Does she defy the label, older woman?  Does she trust her body?  Big questions, a big concept.

Beyond the concept, in writing terms, there’s the premise.  Or what’s at stake.  What might I win or lose by meeting the version of myself who is capable of climbing Mt. Hood?  I might be disappointed that she’s still full of self-doubt.  That she’s still immobilized at the end of the day and wants to do nothing more than sit on the couch and click around on her iPhone.  I might be disappointed to meet an old forty-year-old who is still absent minded.  What might I win?  Nothing less than life and love and clarity of mind.

Six months and twenty-one days to my story’s conclusion.

Straighten it All Out

A lot has happened and not much as happened since my last post in June.  The kids finished another school year, we moved, summer break settled in, we figured out our new neighborhood, Joe took on a commute, and the kids started back to school.  Life goes on. 

I figured this blog was probably dead and there was only a small remaining chance I would actually climb Mt. Hood to mark my 40^th birthday in April.  My current path does not lead me up 3000 vertical feet.  And it’s become clear on my numerous hikes over the summer; I can’t breath on the steep inclines.  I’m pushed to the brink of hyperventilation and the recovery is long.   I have a couple of theories about this.  First, I am not in shape.  Second, I had asthma as a kid and have always suspected my lungs were a liability.  Third, I can’t breath through my nose.  It’s blocked by a deviated septum and semi-collapsed nostrils.  My nose was broken a couple of times as a kid, first by a mini-golf windmill I didn’t notice and walked under as the blade swooped down.   The second was a hard leather basketball to the face, thrown by my sister who thought I was ready for her pass. 

In my world, all questions lead to Google.  First I typed in to my iPhone, “Is it best to breath through your nose when exercising?”   That led me to all kinds of interesting facts.  Mouth breathing limits the expansion of lung capacity.  Nose breathing oxygenates the blood better.  Expelling carbon dioxide too fast (when you breath through your mouth) makes you feel breathless and also drops the oxygen levels in your blood.  All interesting and troubling at the same time.   

Next I Googled “mouth breathing” and found some really scary web posts describing the effects of mouth breathing.  Facial deformity, sleeplessness, suppressed immunity, and even death.  Oh my.  But one bothered me the most.  A quote from Deepak Chopra, “Breathing is the link between the biological and spiritual elements of our nature."  The web post continues, “If you are in a meditative state, you are breathing through your nose.”  No wonder I’ve never been able to meditate.  And I had begun to convince myself I had ADD.

Further Googling led me to septoplasty surgery.   A nose job.  I know I need one.  Have even seen two different Ear, Nose, and Throat doctors for their opinions.  Tapping the play button on the You Tube video of a septoplasty was the wrong thing to do.  The patients nose stretched abnormally long and wide to fit surgical tools, crunching and cutting of cartilage, blood loss.  Oh my.  Just like when I was addicted to the childbirth shows on TLC while I was pregnant with Henry.  Horrific and mesmerizing at the same time.  A train wreck.  While behind the curtain, while they were slicing through my belly to rescue poor little distressed Henry, my brain contained a vivid image of what the whole scene looked like behind that curtain.  Now I’ve infected my brain with the images of a stretched nose and blood.  With the sound of crunching and clipping. 

Because I really need oxygen in my blood and because I would really like to meditate, I’ll plan surgery for just after the New Year.  At least I'll be knocked out.

Redirect

So the knee pain was simple, easily-healed, no-reason-to-worry, run-of-the-mill bursitis.

I learned on Wikipedia that bursae are small sacs of synovial fluid in the body (gross!) and the ones that live under my left knee cap got inflamed when I tried to take up jogging.  Good news though, I'm all healed up already and I can try jogging again if I get fitted for proper shoes and buy expensive inserts.  Better than surgery.  Better than forever pain.  Better than a lot of things. 

So while I wait for room in our budget, another mountain I want to climb comes back in to my view finder.  That mountain is the memoir I started writing in November 2008.  When the topic comes up and I tell people I'm writing a memoir, the response is often a funny look, then a pause, then I fill in the awkward space with details, "It's about about my life as a hippie kid, and some about me as a mother, and a little bit of me getting married at 22, and maybe some pieces about me and my tribe of friends when we were teenagers."  My explanation brings head nods, then follow up questions are asked, and inevitably the polite, "Well I can't wait to read it when you're done."  Me too.

I know somehow that the book will get finished and it will get published.  I don't know how I know this since mostly I feel uncertain about anything that is out there for me in the future.  I don't know if tomorrow morning with the kids will be lovely or exhausting.  With they be in a good mood?  Will I?  Will the kids learn to swim this summer?  Will Henry finish high school or drop out like I did?

But I'm certain I will finish my first memoir.  After all, I've been training for a long time now.  Maybe I'll climb Mt. Hood and publish by my 40th birthday? 

Sidelined

Second run in to my second week of my new exercise endeavor and my left knee goes out.  After I limped up the hill and logged on to my computer, there was an obvious diagnosis.  Runner's Knee.  I'm not even an official runner for crying out loud and I have runner's knee already?  Three days since the hurt began, and it's worse today.  I limp around, move slow, look and feel like an old woman.

Today I ponder whether to schedule an acupuncture appointment.  Since it's not just going away like I would hope.  I also ponder what my next step will be.  My Saturday hike will not happen.  Walking around my neighborhood is out of the question.  I could probably swim, though I am allergic to chlorine and recoil at the thought of appearing in public in a bathing suit.  As there is much suffering in this world both near and far to me at the moment, I feel foolish for worrying about such things.  Really, my biggest problem is feeling self conscious in a bathing suit?  How shallow and trivial can I be?

But my deeper concern, the one that lives in my gut and makes me nauseous, is that being sidelined will be the first step towards abandoning my goal to climb Mt. Hood next spring.  One thing leads to another and I tumble down the rabbit hole and lose sight.  This is familiar territory for me, my numerous starts and stops, my list of goals never achieved.  And for reasons still unclear to me, there is a glowing ball of fear resting on my 40th birthday next April 23rd.  The fear whispers, pulses in my ears. 

If you don't meet this goal, if you fail yet again, if you let yourself down another time, you will simply languish and fade away. 

But since I'm not one to sink in to the muck too far, an idea comes to mind.  I know where I need to steer myself.  The ball of fear needs to knocked out of the park.  Crushed. 

I just Googled the question, "What is the opposite of fear?"  Answers, "Bravery, courage, fearlessness (of course), heroism, unconcern." 

So I need to be the hero who bravely conquers the fear.

Conquer the fears of fading away, of letting myself down, of tumbling down the rabbit hole, and wearing a bathing suit in public.

Forward Movement

I think I'm making progress.  The three mile hike through gorgeous forests and meadows on Saturday felt easy, even on the hills.  I could have started over and done it again. 

On Sunday, I started a running program through an app on my newly purchased shiny white iPhone.  For the first time in my adult life, I ran.  I was the only person in sight on the track at Parkrose High School.  In the rain, ugly New Balance sneakers tied up tight, rain coat unzipped, hip hop song in my ear, a pleasant voice started me on the 38 minute program.   Nearly a dozen plump Canadian Geese lingered in grass in the center of the track.  I felt foolish for feeling self conscious as they noticed me, when stopped their pecking as I lumbered past.  One minute intervals of running should not have been so hard, but they were.  The 1 1/2 minutes of walking in between did not allow my lungs to calm.  I worried I might pass out on the track and that no one would find me until school started the next day.   I only wished I had brought a bottle of water with me.  But is that what runners do?  I never see them running with water. 

Thighs were a solid burn and so heavy as I started up the hill for the walk home.  I wished for a minute I had some bread to feed the geese to thank them for not laughing.     

My thighs still hurt two days later.  The last running I can recall would have been for basketball or softball during my freshman year of high school.  I hated it then too.  My lungs do not support running.  Breath sucks in so hard I can feel a scary indent in the small of my neck.  My pale freckled face turns such a bright cherry red that people notice and ask me if I'm okay.  Also, Joe tells me I'm flat footed, that I don't look right when I run.  Just like dancing, he said, some people just know how to do it and some people don't.

Run two is tonight, likely in the rain again.  This time I will bring water and bread crumbs.