during orientation week introductions at a midwifery school, i repeatedly make a funny observation. we have students go around the room and say their names, where they’re from, what brought them to midwifery, what their hobbies are, etc. invariably, when it comes time for staff introductions, we give our names, say where we’re from, tell what brought us to midwifery, and, to a large extent, note what our hobbies USED to be.
i’m sure it’s not alone in this problem, but midwifery school has a way of swallowing a life. where once there was time for the non-midwifery-related things that one also does, there develops a crushing monolithic existence that, between homework, school, clinicals, births, and recovering from births, leaves little room for the stuff that once made one tick. i guess the transition was a little easier for me, since just prior, graduate school had beaten a lot of extracurriculars out of me. though not all of them.
when i was a young woman, in my teens and early twenties, the outdoor life was the life for me. canoeing, camping, hiking, backpacking–most of these things i did via girl scouts, and some i did through the SCA or on my own. as i became busier (and looking back, more decrepit with my thyroid issues) these all fell by the wayside in favor of sedentary academic pursuits. my time in the woods was reduced to my once-a-month weekend-long herbal medicine school endeavors, and living in a college town was less than conducive to hiking. walking was reduced to something i did on a treadmill or around the quad in the finger-swelling summer swelter. both of which are awful. i cannot stomach movement without a purpose.
fast-forward to last year just before my surgery. i was constantly exhausted. the 3pm low turned me into the walking dead, and i swilled coffee all day long. the pressure on my throat meant that i wasn’t breathing well, especially at night, and the pressure on my neck lymphatics caused me to constantly be sick with a head cold and hacking weeks-long cough. i couldn’t raise my arms or my thyroid would cut off circulation to my head (no ponytails for me!) and the pressure on my vasculature caused broken vessels to spread over my chest. i had never weighed so much, and i looked really unhealthy. i felt like absolute shit.
all of that changed after a $30,000 neck adjustment.
ever since my surgery, i’ve made crazy exponential strides towards health. i haven’t been sick with so much as a cold in 18 months, i sleep like a rock, i feel great, and i have tons of energy. i joked with a colleague about mistaking the feeling of normal life for some kind of manic energized dreamworld (so THIS is what it feels like to actually person?) i’m active without trying, and that is new and TOTALLY COOL.
the tricky bits have been managing the symptoms from my medication (thyroid-in-a-bottle) which include pretty wacky hair loss and transient plantar fasciitis whenever i have to tweak my dose. but these seem like ok annoyances for the payoff.
the coolest side-effect by far to me is the energy. on a whim, i went for a short hike back in july. there’s an enormous 400ft glacial erratic across from my drugstore, so i decided to hike to the top of it. the going was slow, with my heart absolutely pounding in my chest and my lungs barely able to keep up (it was only 0.8 miles round trip and felt like an eternity). “frothy” is an adjective i’ve used to describe my first 50 miles or so of hikes. i prayed not to run into anyone else on the trail, lest they witness the absolute horror of a 275 pound “new hiker.” (hint: the most important thing you take with you on a hike is a sense of humor. it’s crucial). i didn’t have a water bottle with me. i didn’t have hiking shoes.
the water bottle was an instant acquisition after the first hike, but it turned out that the teva sandals were actually good hiking shoes for almost all terrains, so they stayed. i found a website called alltrails where you can look up hiking trails in your area, and i studied it intently. the first hike was fun (sort of) so i’d decided to try more of it. alltrails revealed a network of magic–it would take me YEARS to hike everything within an hour of my house. challenge accepted.
over the next two months, i hiked flat loops around lakes, up tiny hills, up ridiculous mountains, over water and algae-slick granite faces, across boulder piles, through bogs. as i tried harder and harder hikes, my kit grew from a water bottle and a phone to a daypack with a knockoff camelback, snacks, first aid kit, and safe-keeping pouch for found objects and herbs. the more i hiked, the more i wanted to hike, the more energized i became, and the more i remembered an important piece of who i used to be. i remembered the filthy camper with bruised knees who loved to cook food over a fire, who loved to push herself, and who needed communion with nature to survive.
all but one of these has been a solo hike, and that’s been something i’ve loved immensely. as a large person, i tend to avoid overly physically active social situations because of my limitations (not exactly the right word, but it will do). because it isn’t fun to hike with someone chatty when you’re doing all you can to breathe. hiking by myself has let me do the work at my own pace and on my own terms. if i need to stop every 50 feet, i do. if my lungs are burning and my heart is racing and i need to swear profusely to make it through, i do (a lot). it is so fucking liberating.
hiking is also my therapy. you know where i don’t have to hear anything about donald trump? pleasant mountain. how about kim jong un? nope, not on south moat. overwhelming medical bills because our insurance system is broken? doesn’t exist on echo lake trail. hiking helps me get back to a sense of what’s divine and (from my tiny human perspective) eternal. nature. nature is my church. i can slow life down to a snail’s pace. i don’t have to talk (which i do profusely in my midwifery-related jobs). hell, i don’t even have to be bathed and presentable. i can (GASP) wear leggings as pants.
magic.
and the payoff? i can’t even begin to describe the views from the top. the pictures don’t do it justice. i wept like a baby when i made it to the top of my first mountain. 2 miles up, 2 miles down, and a view of everything for miles and miles and miles in between. the truth is, oftentimes i really don’t like the up. it’s hard. it’s ugly. it seems like it will never end. but then once you’re at the top, you can see the earth spread out beneath you, you know you’ve done the thing, and you realize that it’s (mostly) downhill from there. all you have to do on the way down is not fall. which is usually successfully accomplished.
i’ve been dreaming about where all of this is heading. it hasn’t been a fad, the newly embraced physical activity, but it will necessarily have to change based on the climate of my home state. i just so happened to hit a sweet spot with my inspiration to move. the mosquitoes were starting to back off and it was full summer sun–a precious commodity here above the 43rd parallel. now it’s cool and the leaves are changing, which makes for the best hiking of all. soon enough though, it will turn cold and the snow will start to fall. i’m not interested in downhill (i think you have to grow up doing that), but i’m finally at a weight where cross-country and snow-shoeing are a definite possibility. i can do that through the winter, and then what in the spring? it will be muddy, cold, and gross then, so i’ll need a new activity. and then the early summer? that’s full of mosquitoes, so i’ll need something different to do then too until hiking season rolls back around. it will be interesting to figure it all out and to fall into a rhythm of physical activity in nature.
until then, it’s fun to realize that i’ve hiked 103 miles (roughly philadelphia to nyc), and that my combined elevation gain is the equivalent of a hike from the base camp to the summit of everest 1.5 times. that blows my mind. i still have to stop all the time because i’m winded and have a racing heart, but my resting heart rate has gone down to 60. i’ve yet to check my blood pressure, but i’m sure that’s lower too. i fall asleep instantly and wake up rested. i can wear old clothes from college. my body doesn’t hurt. dreamlife.
long story short, i challenge you to remember something that you used to like to do before something else took over your life (work, school, kids). get back into it, even if it takes getting used to. i have a sneaking suspicion you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how healing it can be.
to be continued…
idylls of acadia 