Coming back to the blog is a breath of fresh air. I started working on it, found it very frustrating, and developed a love hate relationship with it. Then I found that it served as a sort of salve, a place I might turn to in order to recover my spirits, to breath out and abandon all of the negative energy and frustration that accompanied my efforts to accomplish nothing more than the simplest of things.
Since I have resumed walking, I use physical exercise as a means of recovery, a method of regaining my psychic balance. There is a dark wood near where I live and it is cool and refreshing on the hottest and most humid of days.
At one point the trail branches. I can continue on to the copy centre and the grocery store, or I can deviate to the right and confront a 100 foot climb to the top of the ridge-line. 100 feet, 120, 150. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the trail goes up at a 45 degree angle and the effort knocks the wind out of your body and leaves you panting and breathless at the summit, almost unable to move, as your body fights to replace the oxygen you have just exhausted.
That was the first time. Since that first time in early May, I have been adding one additional repetition each month. We are now in July and I do three reps, three brutal climbs to the top of the ridge. Each climb is followed by a 3/4 mile descending trail that loops me back to the base of the ridge.
Then I can force my way uphill all over again.
That is what my life has been since the night of the accident. Constantly forcing my way uphill, feeling pummelled and beaten once I reach the top where I realize I have no choice but to continue on with the beatings. Until morale improves. Or until I make a recovery. Or hell freezes over.
Writing seems to pacify me in much the same way as the cool dark shadows of the forest trail. It was round midnight when I realized I was deeply frustrated by my stupidity, my endless inability to perform the simplest of tasks without a cock-up. It was too late to head out for a walk. So I have returned here to the blog, my dear old electron friend. I am sorry to have left you inactive. Hard to accept it has been a month since the last active posting. Hard to believe I am still fighting the same battles. Still climbing to the same ridge-line. Still feeling battered and defeated and bruised. Still continuing on. Still peaking in fresh air.
July 23rd, 2015 Update
A New York Times story of July 22nd 2015 provides details of recent research which indicates that a walk in nature results in fundamental changes to the brain. Research subjects who walked in the woods had reduced blood flow to the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with Morbid Rumination, otherwise known as negative thoughts. So there is scientific evidence to support my belief in benefits from walking forest trails.