sleep and sour

Every day for the past two months, I have been getting up very, very early. A bit too early for a man in my condition but one should never let a condition guide them. Unless they're on fire. Then they should listen to their condition. Generally, I'm not one to preach the gospel of listening to convention. I think it's this type of thinking that puts us in the condition we're in, in the first place. Even the person on fire was listening to convention moments before they sparked up. Perhaps THINKING about each decision that comes along would be healthy.

I seem to wake every morning at the beckoning of other forces that call to me from beyond my slumber. I like to think of these forces as good, yet devilish entities that help me see the world and the universe in a new way that maybe CNN and National Geographic can't offer me. It's that or really, really bad gas. These entities reach out to me and they whisper, "Go to the tree zoo and walk in circles." Don't worry, it's only for about an hour, then the entities get bored and go eat breakfast. I'm compelled to listen to the entities more out of curiosity than fear, but I never underestimate the power of a great ghost reckoning, so I do as they ask and try not to raise a fuss. I have too many new enemies this year and I really don't want to add poltergeists and cherubs to the ever growing list. Besides, what a ghost wants with me in the park at this hour in the morning has to be worth exploring.

I tend to let my mind drift into weird spiritual and magical places in the early morning hours and I am not sure how this happens. I don't know if this is the spirits or just early morning haze. As I look back to my past and dig around for some answers, nothing significant or profound seems to have happened at this hour to create such powerful urges to walk. Just trying to think back and figure all of this "is this or isn't this an important moment" thing is hard to do. Perhaps that's the reason for the walk in the first place - To get my mind thinking.

The early hours of the day are traditionally the best time for a person to think of life as born anew. Doubly so when you're exercising. It's a time of hope and fresh new beginnings. Reflection time - or magical time - is something that the mind usually likes to do in the afternoon or evenings. I don't see how someone wearing sweats and a pair of hundred dollar running shoes can think of life as "new," but they do. It seems to me that this person would see their life as more - - Damaged, and in desperate need of repair. Isn't that the basic idea behind exercise?

However dishonest with themselves as they may be, as I pass them on the track their faces seem as gleeful and innocent as fat children sitting on a mountain of candy. Not one sign of suffering or confusion. Not one person looks plagued by pre-dawn entities. I'd imagine that I sour their morning walk with my pained look of a constipated ninety year-old man trying to figure out a Nintendo Wii as I pass them by. It must really throw them for a loop. "Why is that guy thinking while he's walking?"

I guess my spiritual clock needs some fine tuning.

Two months of brisk morning walks amid the blossoming trees and spring flowers has been such a beautiful way of putting things into perspective for me. Even with the ghosts and the confusion, my thoughts were crisp and clean and deep - like a crystal blue glacier lake. Things aren't evolving in my life any faster than they normally do, but the attitudes within me have. It seems like it's taken lifetimes for me to come to grips with my emotions much like many others struggle to, but I think I'm finally on to something. All of my anger, my pain, my passion, my joy, my fear and my rage issues have found their place in the sun, and I have finally figured out an effective method of living with them all without letting them control my day. Such a breakthrough in life is what most people spend years and/or thousands of dollars trying to achieve. So I guess I'm lucky that I figured some of it out so early. All this was discovered with a dour look on my face.

I am as peaceful as, as, whatever. And, yet I wear an old man's face.

You can't always get the wind to blow in your sails from the same direction. Sometimes it's a good idea to tack until you can find a new bearing, even if the your sails are full and your course is clear. Conventional wisdom would preach the opposite, but, again, conventional wisdom isn't always the best way to live life. A sailor can learn more about himself from a stormy sea than a calm one. A ship is only as worthy as its worst day at sea. The blossoms and the dew of the tree zoo have been my navigator for the past two months and they have been a wonderful one. But today is a day for new winds and waters.

I was a swimmer before I was anything. Before I was born, I was a swimmer. Before I left my dad's body, I was a swimmer. My family's history, as far back as the big bang, is made up of swimmers. So when I need to connect to my roots, I jump into liquid. I am made to swim. The morning wraiths seem to hate the idea of me swimming. I am assuming that either they can't swim themselves or they know that water has some mystical power which they fear. I just need to feel water move across my body. Perhaps I need to find the fat smiling face of a child within me.

I went swimming today. I walked out my door this morning and instead of walking to the right, I went left. I walked to the Y and found myself under the chlorine waves - smiling as fat children do.

Walking isn't a thinking-man's game. It doesn't require a lot of attention to detail to walk successfully. As long as you remembered to put on clothes before you go walking in public, then 9.9 times out of 10 you'll be fine. Swimming is a different game. It requires some in-the-moment attention. Like walking, it helps to be wearing something before you swim in public, but, while a slip up during a walk can give you a sprained ankle or dog shit on your shoe, slip up while swimming and you drown or get eaten by a shark, or worse - you get sucked down the drain at the bottom of the pool. Don't laugh, it happens.

Swimming carried me away from my old world thinking and filled my sails with new winds. The ghosts and their suggestions seemed to disappear for the moment and I was free.

Chlorine cleansed.