One
of the things that puzzled me in my early twenties was observing how people
'lost' exactly that which would be most difficult for them, as an individual.
Something that would not be the worst thing to lose, for someone else. I spent
years wondering at all the candidates for making sense. The 'meant to be' hypothesis,
which I find comfy, but at this stage in the game, nothing to take seriously.
Various contemplations on fate, karma, cause and effect, and so much more.
I
remember knowing a women's band, being their casual groupie, going to practices
and gigs with my best friend whose girlfriend was the drummer. The woman's
wrists began to fall apart, the one thing that meant the most to her in her
life. I thought a lot about that, how vital that was for her, how heart
breaking, and all the consequences , at her young age. The probability of overuse that caught up with her without her ever looking into what might
happen. Happens to most of us, sooner or later.
And if it seems you know people who are exempt, either look more closely, or wait a bit.
On and on these 63 years, I
watch and experience the very thing that really would get to someone...approaching
and being out of balance for so long. We don't tend to take note, take
responsibility, have the energy or motivation or real time warning to really
take stock of this,because it's going to gather momentum and become a deal
breaker, a heart breaker, a calamitous thing sometime in the future, long
before we think calamitous things will come to visit and stay.
Myself, I had an abscessed
tooth I ignored for 8 years, while one of mine had a brain injury, and went
dangerously traipsing around the world, doing unfortunate things. I felt like a
Plover parent, no control whatsoever, except my capacity to keen in the air
overhead, and then feign a broken wing, to deter predators away from my
mistaken one.
And so the infection spread, through the bones of my mouth, and
eventually, a friend loaned me thousands of dollars to have the bone removed,
upper and lower, the infection fought back, and relegated to daily topical
naturopathic applications and herbal antibiotics to keep things quiet. This
kind of thing leads to great vulnerability when exposed to tick disease, to
chronic bronchitis, to so much more.
That one act, of ignoring something for
years when it just seemed too much, set in place what is most challenging for me today. Not unlike all of us. But it's the perfect way that we all make
choices, about what we eat, about repeated antibiotic use, about lack of
exercise of some kind or too little sleep or regular inhalation of vapors that
seep far into our bodies, inflame our organs, and create a gradual condition
that then leaps upon us, typically in our 60's, if not sooner.
So it ends up not really being
as much a surprise, as a visitor we really really wanted to pretend would not
get around to coming by our neck of the woods. And yet knowing that, with
genetic predisposition or circumstance or repeated problems, it was simply a
logical matter of time, if we didn't take action, breach the disbelief of
natural remedies, and act.
And so it happens, generation
after generation. The ones before us with greater constitutional strength, so
we approach this age thinking that, despite radical changes in diet, in
environment, that somehow our own trajectory will be identical to our
grandparents, to our parents. Only that assumption is so lacking in logic. It
simply isn't so.
So despite the happy repetition everyone
has of the litany of "Well, MY grandparent lived to be 5,000 years
old." the deal is simply going to be different for us. Moreso for the next
generation, and then next.
How we mourn Fukushima, how we
feel distress over planes polluting as they fly by and all the boats spewing
waste into the ocean and the rain containing recycled medications. Certainly we
have some idea of what is gradually happening.
This age that people my age find
ourselves in is the current day version of what it has always been. Only our
forbearers laid much to waste, what with chemical fertilizers and short sighted
use of DDT, etc. etc. so many times over. Of formula instead of breast milk and
foods grown without proper nutrients. We are veering back on track, but the
consequence of the past 50 years is coming home to roost.
This means that when we wake up, and once again encounter the cumulation of the imbalance you experienced for years, exacerbated by choices or occupational hazards or events, it simply is what it is. When my brother and I, after trading acupressure, agree that somehow, despite circumstance, I need to do far less if I don't want to become far more ill, there is no room really to rage or lament that this is a tough thing to work out. Noone is doing it to me. It simply is. I can get really distressed by it, or I can feel the huge range of stuff I feel, with mindfulness, let it come up and then let it go by, and then get down to the business of what is possible now.
So I simply like to settle
myself down, lay to rest whatever was pretty tough today, embrace the day I
have been given, and then do what I can,
that works best, and is sustainable. May we all manage to embrace what it is
that we have created, and on this day, have been given.
