Feeling
Slept in until 5:30 today. The extra hour feels good! I seemed to have jacked up my achilles this week on an 8 mile run I took Wednesday and it’s still not feeling right for a full run. I’ve been nursing this injury for a good 15 years now. It first hit when I was into ultra running events (races longer than a marathon). With the help of some physical therapy, I overcame it but never 100%. Then when I went through my workaholic stage and stopped exercise altogether for about 5 years (do not ever do this) it went away. It didn’t return until about 2 years ago when covid shut down the gyms and I started running more on the beach. I’m blaming the lack of weight training and running on an uneven surface. I have managed this with kinesio tape which I don’t understand but its miraculous. However in the last few months I have overdone things. So today I go to the gym and stick to the elliptical machine. Ugh.
It’s not so bad really. I basically plug myself into a Christian contemporary playlist on spotify, program the elliptical on a randomly hilly, intense 45 minute workout, close my eyes and lose myself in the music. If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be vibeing to Christian music, I’d probably throw up. Last June, I was reading Keith Green’s (a popular Christian singer in the 70’s and early 80’s) biography and wanted to listen to his music. I discovered Spotify - I know…I know…a little late to the internet music party - and discovered a whole bunch of music in that genre that I can only say made me feel super good.
This week I posted a blog about how I feel about the Cristian concept of redemption. It’s something that I have had a hard time with intellectually but connect with emotionally. This music is full of language that, if I were to hear in a sermon, might cause me to engage in some serious eye-rolling, but when I hear it in music it sometimes elicits tears. Basically anything that drives me to tears I deem worthy of further indulgence. After 30 years of not being able to cry, I yearn for tears or really anything that makes me feel on a deep level. I believe feelings are like an internal guidance system and they need to flow through us unblocked in order for us to fully experience what is in front of us. A few years ago, I decided to read a novel for the first time in decades. It made me cry. I have read a lot of novels since then. A couple years ago, reading the bible made me cry. I read it every day now. A year ago, I found myself thinking of Jesus and would cry or come close to tears often. Watching Jesus Christ Superstar is pretty good at getting the tears to flow. I got baptized last November. Playing the piano doesn’t make me cry but it makes me feel something move inside of me unlike anything else. I discovered this for the first time in many years just a few years ago and now I play almost every day. Just a few months ago coming home from a swim, I was listening to Ra Ma Da Sa by Snatam Kaur and wept. I listen to it after every swim now (doesn’t bring me to tears now but I feel it deeply) and I often listen to sacred chant music.
Then there is swimming. The whole reason why I swim so often is not because it is good exercise (which it totally is) but because it fills me with a feeling. I’ve only experienced tears once on a swim. My mind is often filled with music while I swim. Usually something I have been improvising on the piano. I had this music along with some poetry running through my mind that was moving me. So that was a one time event but every single day I swim I come out of the water with a gift given through feeling. I think we are here to feel. Feeling becomes a portal, an opening through which we can touch something larger than ourselves that connects us with all that we see and don’t see. I can only describe this feeling as love. It’s odd. In these last few years, when I have cried I have found myself sometimes stop myself and ask “what is this? Where are these tears coming from? What is it I am feeling?” It is never clear to me why I am crying. I can’t spin some story about what has led me to tears. Yeah maybe I thought about Jesus or something else but the actual feeling itself I just can’t put words around. I can only say there is love, there is a sense of home and belonging.
This is only a test - lifeguard training
Oh yeah…today’s swim. It was great. It was 70 when I left the house so I didn’t even bring a towel and layers to put on after the swim. The beach was warm and I would say the water was a touch warmer than yesterday. The temperature fluctuated often on the swim. For much of it, the water was very very pleasant. There was really no surf worth mentioning and the water was calm and smooth. Met my dad afterwards and we had a very nice walk on the beach and we rode the fantacular back up to the parking lot.
Tracks of the funicular
