It’s Just Who I Am Now: Feeling More Deeply at Home in Our Bodies

One gigantic reality each of us must face is aging. We can feel it when we’re 11 going on 18, or 65 going on 85. At first, the aging, the changes are usually so small, so subtle, just normal reality. Then, seemingly suddenly, the change is immense, startling, towering over our old understanding of ourselves.

 

A few days ago, I was experiencing persistent shortness of breath and thought I should go to the ER for immediate diagnosis and treatment. The symptoms started during a hike; suddenly, it got so intense I couldn’t tell if I would be able to make it back to my car. I kept imagining having to call on my phone for an ambulance. It was too late in the afternoon to call a doctor; so I slowed my pace and distracted my mind from the fear by counting my steps until I reached my car. And when I did see the car, what an amazing relief it was.

 

But despite all that, I didn’t want to go to the ER. I had a physical sense of what might be going on, and it wasn’t a heart attack. So, I drove home.

 

The difficulty breathing abated for a while; but after dinner, it returned, with even more symptoms added on. So, my wife drove me to the ER. After several hours, the ER medical team decided I had issues, but nothing warranting a stay in the hospital.

 

When we got home, the sky thundered. I couldn’t see any lightning, but I felt not only thunder but a driving wind; and an intense rain seemed to fall suddenly out of everywhere, from the sky, the hills, the buildings. We ran inside, dried off, and went to bed as soon as we could.

 

The next morning, I at first wanted to buy myself something, some material compensation for going through the confusion, fear, and physical discomfort, but wasn’t sure what it could be. I imagined going to some local store, maybe a bookstore. I love bookstores. Or go online, if I could just think of something I felt I really needed or wanted. Consumerism shows itself in unanticipated ways.

 

Then I realized these occasional symptoms and physical changes were just an important element of who I now was. I didn’t need any distractions from my own life. It was just that my self-image was miles behind my reality. My awareness hadn’t comfortably settled into my moment-by-moment experience. But now, maybe, this was changing, like everything else. And maybe now I could perceive this seemingly new situation or time of life as valuable, not just something to deal with⎼ but as something interesting in-itself to observe and learn from.

 

And it became clear to me that no material gifts, or outside objects was what mattered the most to me. What mattered the most was my response⎼ what I did, what actions I took, how I understood whatever occurred. This mattered. This was what would most determine the quality of the next moments and years of my life.

 

A few days later I ran into a co-worker from a job I had years ago. We went through the usual greetings⎼ how are you? what’s your life like now? And we answered as honestly as possible without going into many details. She talked about being 80 years old and beginning to feel old; and she added that young people she knew described older people as afraid of change.

 

But I replied I didn’t think that assessment of older people, of us was entirely accurate. As we age, certainly as I age, I notice changes more quickly than I used to, especially changes in my health, in my environment, in my friends….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

When We’ve Chased Ourselves from Our Home: Under Siege

Just yesterday, I was on my computer when I was tired. This is something I usually avoid. And there was an email labeled “scam alert.” My thought-brain screamed “fake.” Yet, as I said, I was tired. I opened it, regretted it immediately, deleted it, and became worried about possible malware. Then I was angry at myself for opening it and angry at the spam itself.

 

Every day, we all get so many scam emails, texts, or phone calls, or calls for donations or sales, things we just don’t want to interact with. And every year, it seems to get worse. We now need to erect a wall against our own phone, all communication devices, snail mail ⎼ so much wasted paper. Wasted time. So many businesses we interact with get hacked, so much of our information stolen. I won’t even go into social media. We need security on so many aspects of our lives, so many walls to put up and maintain, so much distancing.

 

And then there’s the news that can be so scary, of the climate emergency, of the threat to our right to vote, to job protections, to the right to control our own bodies and medical treatment. It can feel like we’re under siege. Being under siege, it’s difficult to feel comfortable, at home in ourselves, at home even in our home.

 

Yet earlier today, I remember watching one of my cats, Mikey, walking comfortably and with attention through the flower beds. I realized these beds, these flowers, and the trees around them, the stones and wind were his home. Not only our house, not even us, but all of it. Everything within his territory, at least, was home. Not just home but him. The borders of his territory were the borders of his skin.

 

We often suppress this border, this skin of place, by imagining our skin is our end⎼ and not a border that allows us to touch other borders and be embraced by other beings. We pay an enormous price for this suppression.

 

The American poet Robinson Jeffers wrote:

A severed hand

Is an ugly thing, and man dissevered from the earth

And stars and his history…

Often appears atrociously ugly.

 

Many humans have known the importance of place, indigenous cultures and others. I’ve been re-reading a book called Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape, by the poet and translator of Chinese literature, David Hinton. Hinton says, “Things are themselves only as they belong to something more than themselves: I to we, we to earth, earth to planets and stars…” We recognize and become truly ourselves only with others, in whatever place, time, and universe we are in. We recognize the air we inhale is the air others exhale; we feel the streams of the earth as the veins of our bodies.

 

When I felt the fear from the possible malware embedded in the email, I at first didn’t want to deal with it. I knew intellectually that since I didn’t click on anything in the email itself⎼ and quickly turned off my computer, later changed my password and checked Malwarebytes⎼ there was little to fear. But still, some fear remained. And I wanted it gone. I wanted it out of my body and out of my mind….

 

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.