In less than a week, my family and I will be leaving on vacation, and where we will be going will not have ellipticals, stationary bikes or weight lifting machines.* I am slightly starting to panic on how I will maintain my physical therapy exercises while I am gone. Will my leg get better or worse? I am also trying to cram in exercise before I leave to I am in top shape before I go.
I was at the Y today and saw my friend Mark who had a brain tumor removed several weeks ago.
"I rode my bike and I started exercising again," he told me.
"Are you feeling normal yet? Like you did before the surgery?" I asked.
"I can't go backwards, only forwards," he said.
"I mean do you every forget that you had surgery? Like, you are in the shower or listening to music and you are not thinking about your surgery?"
"You mean like when it isn't present in your thoughts all of the time?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said. I was thinking of normal more like a circle that goes around, not like a line where we move back and forth. I was raised Catholic, and I think of it in terms of Ordinary Time. There are time of suffering (Good Friday and Lent), times of celebration (Easter and Christmas) and then Ordinary Time which is neither. I didn't think of this while I was speaking to him, but I think of it now.
"When I look down and to the side, I have double vision still," he said. "How are you?"
"I am doing better, but my physical therapist said the more I try new things, my knee will react and get stiff," I said. "It isn't bad, but I have to think about it. Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? How often should I ice my leg? That kind if thing." He nodded. The front desk at the Y is a busy place on Saturday morning, so I left him to his work.
On the recumbent bike, I was reading Phil Jackson's Sacred Hoops. I got it for the Boy to read. I thought it might help him to calm his mind. I decided to read it first, and maybe highlight the more interesting and practical passages for him. I wonder about this mindfulness and what all of it means. Jackson had an accident early in his basketball career where he ruptured two vertebrae and he was out for almost two years. I thought about my situation with my knee, and the mindfulness of recovery.
When I finished my cardio, I went to lift weights. I started on the leg press and didn't check the weight before I decided to push. Normally, I start with a low weight and work up. Today, I decided to start with a heavy weight and work down. In one move, I doubled what I could lift before. All it took was a change in direction.
* ...that I can access easily. I am sure there are such machines in France, but probably not at the hotels where we are staying.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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