Northern California: Wine and Fog

Two days in Sonoma County have done wonders to revitalize me from an excess of screen staring and arbitrary work. Tomorrow I’ll watch whales swim through the Pacific Ocean and hike through the famous redwood trees at the Armstrong State Park.

I landed in San Francisco and greeted my girlfriend on Saturday afternoon (she arrived two days earlier). For a city of its size I was impressed by its architectural cleanliness. The weather was chilly and a light fog sifted through the downtown buildings. An intermittent rain tapped my windshield as I drove through downtown. Even when rainy I find Northern California to be beautiful.

Driving up to Sonoma County and tasting the wines made in the region is an experience I’d like to freeze in time. I’d never been exposed to wines of this quality before. Northern California is the best wine region in the world.

My body can’t metabolize alcohol like it used to and that’s okay. Two tastings is more than enough these days. I’ll enjoy what I can.

I find it interesting just how much has to go right to properly ferment grapes, particularly Pinot Noirs, which are popular in the Russian River valley. Even fog plays a vital role in these grapes.

A fog creeps over the valley from the Pacific Ocean and simultaneously cools the grapes and maintains their proper acidity. It prolongs their growth thanks to an added protection from the sun. Pinot Noirs only grow under conditions that are particularly difficult to maintain.

One of my favorite movies, Sideways, has a famous monologue about Pinot Noirs that I’ve been thinking about. The film’s protagonist is an especially conflicted and wounded human being and shares a soul connection with the grape and the extreme demands that it requires to blossom.

Like the movie’s protagonist, I share a soul connection with Pinot Noir. We are who we are. We should embrace it. Quoted in the film:

“It’s a hard grape to grow, as you know. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention, you know? And in fact it can only grow in these really specific, little, tucked away corners of the world. And, and only the most patient and nurturing of growers can do it, really. Only somebody who really takes the time… to understand Pinot’s potential… can then coax it into its fullest expression.”

Maybe I’m a pinot noir. Or maybe I’ll find out tomorrow that I have more in common with Zinfandel. Still, the pinot noirs out here are the best I’ve tasted. It will be difficult to downgrade my palate; tasting wine in Northern California feels like home.

Here’s to my favorite grape.

Fork in the Road

I find that my most joyful time on a bike ride is when I stray from my plan. It is when I ignore the voice in my head that whispers to exhaust myself, to burn the maximum amount of calories, and to “pedal at full speed.” The further I stray from this voice, the more at peace I am.

This morning I found myself at such a metaphorical fork in the road, ten miles north, along the Mississippi River. I was four miles shy of my “planned route,” which is typically the Chain of Rocks bridge, but a flock of geese was feeding in the moist grass to my left, and there was a balmy scent in the air that strengthened as I pedaled farther away from the city.

Rather than “maximize my workout,” I shunned this inner competitor and stopped. I parked my bike against a tree and watched the geese, without any particular plan to resume my ride or turn back. I did not have a watch or a phone with me and I realized just what a brutally manufactured device the clock is for so many who live and die by its limitations and permissions.

Suddenly moments passed more slowly and with gratitude I stopped activity and absorbed my surroundings. As I breathed, my own anxieties over tomorrow calmed and the diabolical planner within me died, and I felt better for it. Let my inner planner die: he lived too long already!

It is a modern mantra, I think, that an idle mind is a wasting one, but in fact the opposite is true. An active mind festers and an idle mind blossoms. The less I try to do, the more I am able to think and the more I am able to be at peace with my own existence.

How few have the courage to stop all duty and appreciate the stillness of nature. Those at work say time flies by, and this is true for anyone in a constant chase for tomorrow and a constant bracing for “the next step,” heeding for “the next thing needed for fulfillment.”

Life is brutally diluted under this mindset. What was organic becomes a construction, a ladder to climb that is in a constant state of lengthening, and when one reaches the end of the lifespan, there is nothing to do but look up and realize that the ladder still extends out of sight. Then the mind will cry in anguish, “But I had so much higher to climb!” But who’s version of fulfillment do you climb for?

If we grant ourselves permission to halt our inner urges for progress, time ceases to rush as well, and ironically, I believe, the years graciously slow.

You deserve to own each day, and therefore make it distinct, even in your chores. You deserve to spend your hours freely and merrily, to sleep and dream, to be outside, to have a picnic that lasts for hours instead of the brief office lunch in which employees tragically cram their food in haste, often at their work desks, under artificial lights, breathing artificial air.

A “year” spent in leisure is infinitely better than a year spent in labor so long as the stopwatch, and the compulsion to plan, are removed from its borders.

Neglect Devours

I’ve heard it argued that our dreams are trying to tell us something important about ourselves. I’ve also heard it argued that dreams are nothing but a random assemblage of memories and thoughts, broken shards of glass that are glued back together into a meaningless pattern with no design or intention.

I suspect that the truth, like many truths, is a little of both.

I had a dream last night in which I owned a large pet snake that I had long-neglected to feed. I had put off its feeding for other activities, though a part of me knew the snake was badly starved. Finally I decided to feed the snake.

I opened the snake’s cage and it lunged at my right hand. It gaped its jaws wide and swallowed the hand, and attempted to continue devouring the arm affixed to that hand. I can’t believe it thinks it can eat me, I thought.

I screamed for help, but everyone was distracted by their phones. My left hand, my good hand, went numb.

I believe the message is clear: we (I) can be devoured by the things we neglect. The snake is a metaphor for anything we value but fail to nourish. The neglected thing starves, and any starving organic thing is capable of becoming monstrous. Put off the nourishment for too long and any attempt to feed the snake is futile.

The snake can be substituted for practically anything, but I think it holds truest when substituted for a relationship, a possession, or your own health.

And what greater distraction to duty exists today than the smartphone? And still, the dream’s phone distraction can be a metaphor for anything capable of instant gratification but little lasting pleasure. By focusing on these things, we allow the pet we value to starve and eventually become something hideous.

Nourishing anything of value requires work.

Plants whither when they aren’t watered.

Kids join gangs when they have no other sense of belonging.

Neglect your own body and it becomes fertile soil for budding diseases.

Giving the things we value the proper attention means often saying “no” to the world’s army of distractions.

I must not neglect the metaphorical starving snake in the other room.

Weekly Plunder: Week 21 - Romanticizing Nature

That which you romanticize will eat you alive. In the case of nature it often happens quite literally. I am thinking specifically of the documentary Grizzly Man, in which a man sets out to live with Alaskan grizzly bears only to eventually be devoured by one. In the epic battle of nature and civilization there isn’t necessarily a salvation in one or the other; there are merely consequences that one must be aware of when choosing to settle in either.

This thought brings back a memory from 2020. My first sight of the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas (Exhuma) enraptured me. The water was a sapphire and translucent blue that one cannot fathom from the polluted shorelines of a heavily populated nation.

I hurried to the nearest docks, threw my shirt off, and jumped into the ocean. A powerful ocean current pushed me sideways, as if attempting to sweep me along the coast. I swam against it, enjoying the challenge. This must be heaven, I thought.

Then I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. At first I thought that I had been stabbed by a sharp end of barnacle clinging to the dock. I looked into the water, though, which was nearly transparent, and saw what must have been the king of the island’s jellyfish, floating inches from my body.

The skin around my stomach quickly reddened and my bowels weakened. I climbed out of the ocean, knowing that this injury would linger for a few weeks. It did. It scabbed, it caused giant red welts to form over my entire midsection, and it felt like a second degree burn that lasted for days. It was a freakin’ doozy I tell ya.

It’s estimated that up to 100 people die per year of jellyfish stings. I wasn’t close to death, or at least I assume that I wasn’t, but I can attest that the sting hurt a hell of a lot more than a wasp sting. It hurt a hell of a lot more than any sting I’ve experienced, for that matter.

I quickly returned to the ocean—fun always has risk, after all—but that is a story for another blog.

Nature is lovely, but the lumberjacks and hunters of the world have a far more intimate relationship with it than the urban poets who venture to the woods for a respite.

What I’m watching: All of us are Dead, a new Korean zombie series on Netflix. This is supposed to be bonkers. Anything labeled as “bonkers” has my attention.

What I’m reading: Four Thousand Weeks. It’s a book about time. Four thousand weeks is how long it’s estimated that you will live, and even that is not a guarantee. The human lifespan is short: spend your time wisely.

What I’m listening to: “Call Me Little Sunshine” by Ghost. I’m seeing Ghost live next month and I believe they’ve mastered the art of the double entendre. Songs can be both tongue-in-cheek and cerebral, which is a difficult duality to pull off.

What I’m doing: Each week I’m running a little longer. This week I mixed a few random sprints into my routine. The “bad” foot typically feels raw and sore after a run, but the feeling dissipates over the course of two days. My physical therapist told me this feeling happens because the foot’s muscles are still stiff and severely inflamed. The muscle tears are repaired, but the foot still has some work to do before it gets “back to 100%”. However, it’s getting there, bit by bit.

All Candles Burn to the Ground Eventually

“All candles burn to the ground eventually.”

This was oddly my first thought upon waking this morning. Shortly after, as my dreams dissolved into a bittersweet nothing, I completed my final physical therapy session. My jumps and hops felt pretty good, as did a brief jog. I hadn’t jumped in five months. I was just happy to be jumping.

I have an at-home therapy plan to work out the last of the joint stiffness/ache/lack of mobility. But for all intents and purposes the ankle is healed. I’m ready for full activity.

Sometimes we all need a little help. I wanted to heal my foot on my own and stubbornly tried. Realizing after months of futility that it wouldn’t happen, I sought a doctor, and later a physical therapist. Healing took a lot out of me. It took time, money, and resources. I am lucky. I realize that.

I think about the potential alternative a lot. When I first felt my body hit the road and felt my ankle twist backwards and then quickly rip sideways, my first thought was that my walking days were over.

My foot doctor said the same: “When I first saw your foot, I thought it was done for, that we’d find bone fragments everywhere and ruptured tendons far out of place. I can’t believe the scans showed it stayed intact.” I’ve had a few low points in life, and the act of dragging myself and my bicycle off the road to a nearby sidewalk was certainly among the lowest. There’s a scar by my knee that gives me chills every time I glance at it.

So I lucked out. I’m back to normal, only five months later, and I don’t take that for granted.

I have mixed opinions on the act of praying. I think it’s somewhat selfish and delusional to think that one vessel is entitled to a personal relationship with a universal creator. Suffering is far too indiscriminate for that and the universe is far too vast to expect attention to a petty problem (or, sadly, even a significant problem). Selfish prayers have contributed to idiots praying for football game wins.

On the other hand there is something meditative about searching inside for what one is seeking, and connecting to a “higher self” (or higher calling) to realize one’s own need for change. That, I think, can contribute to evolution. I see use in that.

I don’t know if it’s a prayer so much as a glance up into the sky and a silent “thank you” echoing through my mind. Endings tend to be anticlimactic and often brutal, but damn that would’ve haunted me if my runnings days ended bloodied and sprawled on the side of a road by a tire store.

My candle will burn out eventually, but today is not that day.

Misogi

6:30 am on Monday and I’m starting physical therapy. I only have two sessions remaining, assuming my evaluation on Wednesday goes well.

I start with a few laps of leg movement drills, followed by a few ladder exercises (a rope ladder is spread over the ground and I hop/skip/step over the ladder rungs in a variety of movement patterns). This is followed by inclined foot stretching, both with legs straight and with knees bent.

I take a ten-minute jog in which I can feel some stiffness in the ankle and inflammation on the bottom of the foot, but both pains subside with each passing minute. I stand on the edge of a step and complete some toe raise exercises, first with both feet acting together and then using only the injured foot. I complete squats while standing on the flat side of a 1/2 balance ball. More stepping exercises. I’m breezing through the routine and gaining confidence. The foot’s feeling stable and I’m almost healed.

“What will you do with your healed foot?” My physical therapist asked me.

I recently read about “misogi,” a concept that originated from two ancient Japanese Shinto gods. The Japanese god Izanagi was madly in love with the Shinto creator goddess Izanami. She dies and goes to a hellish underworld. Forlorn and determined to bring her back, Izanagi ventures into this hell and fends off a variety of horrifying creatures. He’s unable to retrieve Izanami and retreats back to our world, but his flesh is scarred and tainted from the creatures he fends off. He eventually purifies himself of his tainted flesh in a body of water. This cleansing, or purification, of impure flesh and soul is called “misogi” (apologies for all incorrect interpretations).

Misogi is therefore an act of cleansing the impurities or toxicities of one’s life (in Shinto, often with a body of water). The act of misogi as detailed in the book The Comfort Crisis is more of a purification from the detriments of modern, urban living.

One accomplishes this misogi through an intense risk that has a high probability of failure. It has to be outside one’s comfort zone and preferably outside of the comforts and luxuries of the city.

There is an interesting paradox associated with urban living. It’s supposed to be a euphoria of conveniences. Yet every study I’ve read suggests that human misery increases as a place becomes more urban.

I think misogis can be applied daily. They don’t have to be a “once per year” event. They can be the consistent and constant disruptor of certainty, the embracing of risk. The bike ride through harsh winter trails. Skateboarding down steeper ramps. Running outside on new trails, in harsh rain. Opting out of phone browsing in favor of sitting on the ground, in the grass, outside, staring… and daring to do nothing, and to be bored.

I can apply a yearly misogi to my life too. A swimming with sharks in the Bahamas. A bikepacking trip thousands of feet up into the Blue Ridge mountains. Hiking off-trail in a national forest. Those might be some of my recent misogis. I’m thinking about what it will be this year. It has to delve into the unknown, whatever it is.

I’m thinking of misogis. That’s what I’ll do with my healed foot: as many of them as possible.

Killing Comfort

Comfort kills.

So many people only experience the weather in brief stints. For these people, the weather is often just a nuisance during a brief 30-second jaunt to the car, which then transports them to work in an office with a chair and a desk. The day is therefore spent sitting in a car with air conditioning, followed by sitting in a chair under air conditioning, followed by sitting in a car with air conditioning again. All environs provide optimized comfort and entertainment. Maybe, at some point, the day involves easy movement in a gym, again with air conditioning, as well as rows of tv screens to combat the boredom.

Even the sun, the very thing that allowed for creation in the first place, is seen as a threat to the body (and industry provides sunscreens to lather over the body as a “fix” to the problem). The sun causes squinting, or sweat, or potential sunburns. Homo sapiens have existed for give or take 250,000 years, and only in the last 100 years has the sun been classified as “dangerous.” Since this odd diagnosis of sun as bad, an industry of “sun protective creams” has emerged.

Living life in a vacuum, the modern body feels plush cushions on the derrière and back while sleeping, cushions while eyes are glued to the television, cushions while eyes are glued to the phone, and cushions while engorging the stomach in a never-ending paroxysm of gluttony (true hunger is rare in the Western world).

The modern brain isn’t bored while browsing the phone for “stimulation”. Boredom should not exist in the modern world because boredom is another potential discomfort. Silence should not exist because silence runs risk or boredom. So kids and adults sit on their asses and TikTok or whatever the hell is the trend of the year.

“But the modern lifespan is longer,” I’m told as a counterpoint. And to that I say, how many of those extra years are actually spent living? Heart disease kills by the millions annually. By 2028 the long-term US nursing home care industry is expected to reach 1.7 trillion US dollars, provided an annual growth of 7.1% (Grand View Research, Inc.).

1/3 of Americans are either diabetic of pre-diabetic. Almost half of Americans struggle to climb a single flight of stairs (studyfinds.org). Even our conveniences become more difficult: the stairs were once invented to make climbing easier. Now the body needs something more automated than stairs to transport it vertically. The modern concept of being alive seems eerily close to the undead version of life in any zombie film.

There is a universal law that nothing is created without having both intended and unintended consequences. The unintended consequences of industry and the drive for growth are simple: an overly-medicated and largely miserable population that cannot process or experience discomfort.

The modern Western human, often addicted to these comforts and the obsession with the elimination of all danger, cannot accept pain, cannot accept suffering, and often cannot accept danger as a necessary component to a meaningful life. Every sickness must have a cure that can be paid for. Erasing all threats is a matter of a savvy Google search.

I imagine myself living thousands of years ago, a persistence hunter, preparing for a hunt via a long run. My body evolved with the capacity to run and breathe with stunning efficiency. My tribe can hunt a deer (or its predecessor) not with speed, but with endurance. There are risks involved with the hunt. We don’t need trendy shoes with arch support or technical gym shorts: we just run. We compete with other predators, and other predators decide whether we humans would also make a decent meal. There are real threats, not the modern vain “what if my car gets a dent or my sweater gets a stain” type threats. My belly is often hungry. My legs are often tired. But ironically, I do not feel any form of depression, not in the modern sense. I focus on my feet hitting rock and sand as the heat pummels me and my thirst for water increases. The deer will collapse soon and hunger will be sated.

This morning I thought about comfort, my biggest existential threat, as I embarked on a bike ride. The temperature was 19 F (minus 7 C). With the wind chill it was 5 F (minus 15 C). The wind lashed me with its ice-coated whips of air as I pedaled toward Grant Farm. The Gravois Greenway was mottled with ice patches that my gravel bike often slid over. One bad fall and my right foot, I knew, would be done for. I slowed a little as I crossed each ice patch. The trail took me over icy bridges, through white-sheeted forest, and alongside bleak highways. Sunlight filtered through the dead tree branches and brushed my cheeks. I pedaled as my heartbeat raced, mile after mile, hour after hour, and I felt life in pain. Time slowed. Two hours on the bike felt infinitely longer. Silence enveloped me, though there was certainly plenty of ambient sound.

I live in the same weather as more than one million other people in the city, but many of them do not understand the full magnificence of the weather. That to me is a great tragedy.

I am finding that as my foot heals, my competitive tenacity is also returning. It is ruthless, the sort that punished competitors as severely as possible years ago and has long-since hibernated, but still lurks within. My inner “Terry Silver”. The type that, as a swimmer, grabbed ankles and twisted them when lapping people at practice. This inner warrior knows that a successful hunt requires ruthlessness and resolve.

I feel cynicism when I think of how the quest for comfort can lead so many into a black hole of materialism that sucks the essence out of the soul. Give me the dragon. Give me the struggle. I have one fear, my greatest fear: an end in a nursing home. Let me be devoured by the dragon instead of a devourer of comfort.

Better to fight the dragon and lose convincingly.

A Return to Running

I was cleared by my physical therapist to attempt a short (five minute) jog during our Wednesday session. It was successful. The pain in my right foot remained relatively minor. I was told that the injured foot was healed enough to continue running so long as the pain remains below a “4/10”. The pain remained around a “2/10”, never more than a dull ache. I was also told that now it has enough strength to “push through some pain” (again so long as the pain remains below a “4/10” without much fear of a significant setback.

That was my first successful run since August, a gap of almost 5 months. The foot, though not 100% healed, is quickly approaching that mark. For all intents and purposes, the foot is “healed”.

The following day I jogged for a total of 7 minutes (on a treadmill to avoid slopes, slants, holes, and sidewalk crevices). The day after, I jogged for minutes. This morning I jogged for 14 minutes. The pain has never elevated above a “2/10”, though there is a damaged tendon that is easily inflamed.

What a journey! I was beginning to think that the foot would never heal. Five months is a long time to walk with pain and a very long time to feel that running is outside of your grasp. It takes a toll on one’s emotions.

Next week I’ll start some agility exercises to regain the ability to quickly shift direction with speed. I only have two weeks of physical therapy to go.

I imagine myself as the protagonist of the Stephen King novel Duma Key. Injured from a car accident and forsaken by his family, he rents a small house on an island in the Florida Keys, and lives there alone. Each day his task his simple: take one step more than the day before. It is both therapeutic and gainful for the character, who finds his lost self in the process of walking.

Now we’ll see where the ability to run and bike can take me.

2021, Goodbye Forever

It’s time to pull the curtains on 2021. As Seneca is credited as saying, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

I spent the afternoon lounging outside Mike’s Bike Shop in Central West End with some pals who work the store. We shared a beer together; the weather was cool and yet bracing enough to wear just a tee. The atmosphere was jovial, a festive ambience in the air. Randoms sauntered by the shop, hopefully on walks without destinations, and wished us well.

For a change it seemed the world was content to pause. How nice to spend the last afternoon of the year outside, with random conversation about celebrity deaths (Betty White died shortly before her 100th birthday), crappy Hollywood sequels (common consensus is the new Matrix movie sucks), bike tire upgrades, and aging.

The store owner’s dog was adopted; I was told its previous owners brutally beat and starved it, nearly to death. It was nearly dead when found, reduced to being a skeleton wrapped in torn-up skin and containing a host of internal issues.

The dog cannot keep the owner out of his peripheral version. He constantly rested his head on the owner’s lap and gazed into the owner’s eyes, as if thinking, “my love for you will never end, and I’ll show you this devotion for every moment of my being.” The dog has a gentle demeanor. It’s as though because he realizes the full extent of pain’s possibilities and the horrors accompanying true suffering, he aims to make everything and everyone around him as comfortable as possible.

As the owner told me, “I had to build the dog from the bottom up, from a starved heap of bones to a living thing. Now he knows what the alternative feels like, and he loves what he has with every ounce of himself.”

And with that, my last relevant lesson of 2021: the darkest depths of fear and suffering give us the fullest appreciation for love and life. Further, we can’t fully appreciate health unless we’ve fully experienced a lack of it.

I couldn’t help but think of my foot when I think of the dog. “Building from the bottom up” describes what I’ve been doing with an injured foot for the final months of 2021. A new appreciation for walking is what I’m ending the year with.

Every walk is a gift. I was given a glimpse of the alternative to being bipedal. Therefore, I finished 2021 with a blessing: every painless step now feels like magic.

My friend told me, “God realized He couldn’t give you COVID this year, so he decided to hit you with a freakin’ car instead. Because that’s the equivalent challenge for the Manimal.”

And as I think about the reconstruction of my foot, I also think about the countless adventures from this year. Adventures are great, and if you are lucky enough to experience them with someone else, all the better.

A few highlights (many photos captures in Sights section):

• Lots of important weddings, one of them (my brother’s wedding) giving me a trip to Puerto Rico. And what a lovely week that was!

• A bikepacking trip through the Blue Ridge mountains!

• Key West, Florida, and the Hemingway house cats!

• Hiking Turkey Run in Indiana!

• Megadeth show!

• Hiking Elephant Rock and the forest and bluffs around it, and reaching the highest point of elevation in the state of Missouri!

• Trips to Missouri/Illinois wine country and the imbibing that ensued (Hermann, Augusta, St. Genevieve, Grafton, among others)

• Hiking through Shawnee National Forest (and drinking wine along the Shawnee Wine Trail on top of it).

• A trip down memory lane in North Carolina to see places, people, and things that were a relevant part of my life before my China days.

• Befriending Grant’s Farm goats and camels!

• Incredible Christmas light shows in Saint Louis

And now, on to the next adventure. Don’t spend too much time waxing nostalgic, my constant reader, or you’ll miss your next great opportunity. After all, the only constant is change…

Battling the Dragon

One of the more intellectual arguments against the existence of what many imagine to be heaven, or eternal salvation when described as infinite pleasure, is simple:

A constant state of euphoria cannot elicit pleasure unless there is a counterbalance to compare it with. A high cannot be understood or appreciated unless it is attained by surmounting a low. One would become numb by constant goodness, and it would quickly cease to have significance.

In other words, we need a dragon to battle, a threat, and the possibility of losing the battle.

• A fall helps us understand the significance of standing back up again.

• A scrape teaches us that flesh can heal.

• A loss reveals there’s something to win.

• A failure reveals there’s something to improve.

• An oppression reveals there’s something to liberate.

• A rejection teaches that acceptance is significant.

• A sickness reminds one that health should never be taken for granted.

Why are we (okay, why am I) obsessed with dragons? How did we conjure up this fictitious creature, and why are they always a threat to the kingdom?

I heard one intellectual argument that makes sense. Evolutionarily speaking, our ancestors likely faced two threats: venomous snakes from below (and hidden within the trees, competing with us for food), and birds of prey from above. The dragon, then, is a combination of these two magnificent predators. It is the creature that can destroy us from any vantage point. It impales us with its talons, it swallows us whole, it crushes our rib cage with its tail, and it incinerates us with its fire.

Good can only be defined if bad exists. Even a kingdom loses worth without a threat to protect it from.

It brings to mind a silly example. I have an Internet friend who has long been in search of “the perfect pair of pants.”

”What will you do when you find the perfect pants?” I asked him once.

“I know full well there’s no such thing,” he said. “But I’m invested in the quest. It’s the chase that we need to have. Let it go on forever. Take part in the chase!”

To that I say, battle the dragon. Whether it’s beaten or not is insignificant.