Pain, Fear, & Physical Activity

I love pain, I love fear, and I love physical activity. I love these three because they remind me of something, that I am alive. I remember my car accident, the one I nearly died in and it awoke something in me. When I regress to that time, the feelings of fear, but mostly of the will to live arose so strongly. There was no flash of my life before my eyes, there was the screaming in my head, “Not yet!”

Fear is something I struggle with, because I really do not “feel” it. Anytime a small amount of fear arises in me, it is only out of caution, like do not get to close to the edge of this rock ledge, because there is no railing. If I am up high, I look down, if there is a railing I lean against it and stare at it. Once in a while I get startled, but that can be hard to do, because I am normally very aware of my environment. I am usually the one that does the scaring. My friends tell me I get this expression that scares them, this creepy smile just gets on my face and my eyes just change when I’m about to do something to scare one of them. I used to scare my family a lot, it was fun playing the trickster on all of them.

As for pain, I love pain. It gets my endorphins running, adrenaline pumping through my veins and part of this is why I love tattoos and piercings. I honestly do not care when I am older and my skin is saggy, that my tattoos are not going to look like they once were. I am still going to make my back a canvas of art. As for the piercings I am modest since I do want to be a Nurse, there are none on my face, but I wish that people would judge not for what you do to your body but by your actions. Pain to me almost equals pleasure, but please, do think I am a BDSM person, I honestly do not fit into the crowd. I like some pain, but what they like is not my style. I got my own style. Of course I am in constant pain too, my knees has tendinitis in them that hurts almost every day. My lower back has a malformed bone so I have to twist then bend, or vice versa, I cannot twist and bend or I’ll be on the floor withering in pain. Pain reminds me I am growing older, that I am not younger. With each year, I do grow a little more wiser, as I understand what I did not before, but it is still not something I look forward to. It still reminds me that I am alive, whether the pain is of my choice or not. Here I am, alive, growing older day by day.

As for physical activity, it makes me feel more alive than fear or pain. Endorphins are running through me as I run, bike, hike, white water raft, etc. I love to dance and be in a rave. Physical activity, especially dancing, is meditation for me, like soup for the soul. There grows to be a quiet focus in me as I dance within the crowd, or mountain bike in the quarry, or quietly hiking and observing the world around me. There is a quality there that I sometimes lack to achieve when I am sitting by myself. I employ emptiness, attempting to be a void in my mind at times because my thoughts run a million miles, like a river overflowing its banks finding its way to another source. Maybe that is not the best analogy.

Yet all of it reminds me, here, now, this is my moment. In this moment I am not dead. The quote that keeps running through my head is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “I’m not dead yet!” Actually I think I am going to go watch that, kick back and enjoy. I’ve been catching up some social time since moving back in with my parents, several states away from my boyfriend.

Down the Rabbit Hole

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Imagine life like a great big forest, or better yet, mountains.  We have uphill, downhill, there rivers, clearing, and of course paths.  The mountains, the forest, it can be use as an analogy for our lives, for our personal and spiritual development.  Our lives are full of conflict, with constant struggles uphill and sometime it is like the breeze of going downhill, or floating down a gentle river.  Sometimes we may float gently down the river and sometimes the river threatens to take our lives, consume us, as head towards that “home.”  So where is home?

Our teachers, our Elders, they are like the Cat.  They are the guideposts, they are our compass, to help us find our direction.  Sometime though, through a set of instructions we get confused and make ourselves lost.  Often we start off, not knowing how to use the compass, or even better, the wood lore.  Do we know what this foot print or this set of markings mean? Do we understand the stars and the direction they point, or what does it mean about where the moss grows?  Do we know how to take and respect and flow with the cycle of nature?  To survive on our own?

Some people chose a set path.  The paths may seem easy, but they have their own troubles, heck even those who don’t follow a set path can run across the same troubles.  We all may run into someone who is cutthroat, who would rob us blind if they could.  We may find those who are struggling and may try and drag their weight for a time.  We may find someone and share our campfire and our lore together.  Sometimes we meet up and form a group together, but we often split up, as one takes the fork and the other goes down the other.  That is the beauty of paths.  Sometimes there is a dead end and we have to take a walk back to get where we were and go forth again.  We can also see the dead ends as a chance to go on our own into the forest, sometimes we end up on the path, sometimes we end up lost.  Yet all who wonder are not lost.  That is a Tolkien saying.

It does not matter which way we go, because we will eventually end up somewhere.  The worst part is if you decide to stay right where you are, caught up in so much indecision, you’ll wither away before you get to maybe where you want to go, or wherever you are destined to be.  There are so many analogies I could throw in.  Some of us meet up, exchange numbers, and even though we part ways, we will still communicate making calls.  We can get into an area where there is no reception and cannot make a call except that of 911.

Let me put it into perspective using my life, yes my life as the example.  I am a wanderer, but I have chosen to not follow any strict path ways.  Occasionally I will find a path, sometimes I travel along side it or on it.  I meet people on the path and randomly who I will share my “campfire” with, who teach me and I in turn teach them, before we part we may exchange numbers. We make calls, sometimes we discuss, sometimes there is a whole group discussion upon this “phone” of ours.  I’ve had “teachers” of long dead ghostly apparitions of Buddha, Jesus, and the many authors.  I have yet to have a real life teacher, one who I would call Master or sensei with respect. My own imagination has been my teacher.  Sometimes I travel at night, struggling under the darkest nights with no moonlight to light the way, sometimes there is moonlight, but I must travel carefully lest a “monster” crosses my path and I must fight.  Sometimes I stumble into a lion’s den.  I travel though rain and sunshine, through cold and heat, towards my destination, whatever it may be.  My feet carry me and carry me as I go along.  I am going somewhere and there are days when I just want to give up.  I’ve been hurt, sometimes luckily where others can heal me, and most often times where I must take care of myself.  I once had to make a “911 call” but I was ridiculed and almost ended up dying for it.  Yet someone managed to stumble across me and save me from near death.

This is my life.  I am not very lost, even if it appears it.  I am more at home among a forest than a concrete jungle anyways and this can be taken metaphorically as well as literally.  I am a nomad within the forest, constantly moving, constantly seeking through it all, with the mysteries of life surrounding me.  The weather does not matter.  I am often reminded of two quotes, “It is not the end that matters but the journey” and also “This too shall pass.”  Will I ever come at rest? Occasionally, sometimes not out of choice, but out of necessity.   The only rest in the end may eventually be that of Death.  I am not afraid, it will come to me in Time.  Sorry, I just do not like the beaten path.  It is just part of my nature though I respect all those who follow it, but for me that path does not work.  That is the nature of my journey and eventually the legacy I will leave behind.