Friday, July 31, 2009

Is anything afraid of an elephant?

I'm in Pasta Pomodoro for the best rare skirt steak on the planet. More intervals on the bike today, and my craving for iron continues to separate me from my veggie friends.
Emily is my waitperson, I am the last customer, and I am attacking the Tirimisu already out of the to-go box. We agree on the superior piece of meat, the work hours (I owned a restaurant on the Big Island in Hawaii), and somehow the small talk morphed into killer bees, then rhinos.
I think it started with altitude, which ironically is an image I selected for my blog. I tell her the boring moments on the Big Island I cured by shipping my skis over from the Mainland and skiing Mauna Kea at 14,000 feet for one day.
The next day at Hapuna Beach, we all get sick from what was surely a minor case of HAPE (see Wiki) which I tell Emily is possible at high altitude, which segs into my Annapurna III Expedition. I am recalling my day with a rhino in Nepal, after we climbed Annapurna.
As a cool-down, Tom, Michael, and I visited Tiger Tops, a national project dedicated to re-populating the dwindling tiger population after the British decimated it. We have a tour guide, and I describe to Emily the beginning of a casual walking tour to one of the observation towers for visitors to view some "wildlife". I am thinking this will be a totally boring day as a tourist, but maybe, just maybe we will see a tiger and it will be worth our time.
The first fragrance on the trail is a large pile of dung. Too large for a horse I am thinking, and it is swarming with flies. The flies are actually migrating killer bees feeding on elephant dung, which we will later be told just terrorized villages in northern India leaving dead people in the wake. Michael is at the front of our little expedition, and he starts sprinting, arms flying in all directions, with dozens of tiny insects pumping away with their thoraxes at his clothes, neck, and face. Slow motion sets in, the guide is yelling at us to jump into the river and throw our colored daypacks as far away from us as we can.
"Bees like color!" I hear. Now we are all sprinting, and I have torn the clasp out of my long hair and messed it all over my face and neck like a portable mosquito net. It's "every man for himself" and I hit the river first without my daypack.
"Ok, they took off, you can come out of the river now" our guide yells.
We gather for a body count. Tom pulls out his Swiss army knife and, like on the mountain, calmly performs his surgery, cutting off the still pumping venom sacs in our skins. Michael's lip is the size of Alaska, and his face is beginning to swell.
"We can walk this off on the way to the tiger observation tower" our guide states. So I guess he thinks we will live and have some more adventure left in us.
About a half hour later, a snort ahead that sounds like a 7.5 earth tremor sets off the alarm again.
"It's a rhino" our guide flatly states. "Take cover!".
He's got to be kidding. No, he's not. Here he comes, the most freakingly huge alligator skinned alien beast I have seen, even at the zoo. Again, "every man for himself". Guess we left the team spirit on Annapurna, as I face it with the rhino, the men out of sight.
I hang a right toward something that looks like a tree. It's pathetic, but I think it will hold me. I drop the colored pack bait again and climb to the top as it bends over and threatens to toss me off. This rhino has a good nose and lousy eyesight, because all he has to go by is my scent. He stops at the foot of the tiny sapling that is hosting me, snorts my pack with a 5.5 tremor and then the trunk of my treehouse. I'm a history piece for National Geographic I am thinking at this point, when I see Tom, Michael, and the guide over the savannah brush gently swaying like they are sailing gracefully through the terai.
The rhino turns, snorts another tremor, and makes a "fast walk" for it.
Now I know, rhinos are afraid of elephants, because at that moment the guys come into view on top of their limo service - an elephant driven by his trainer. I am subtle in my arm waving, but they see me.
"You can come down now, rhinos are afraid of elephants" the guide yells at me.
No kidding.
Emily's eyes are as big as the serving trays at this point and get bigger when I tell her that was just one day of our year long adventure tour.
"I could start in on the Iranian revolution we got trapped in, but if I do Emily you will never get out of here tonight".
"Dang Ann, you should start a blog!"
"Really? That's hilarious. I just started one today".
"Really? Where can I find it? Will you post some of your stories?"
"Yeah, ok. I'll start with killer bees and the rhinos".

Fit For Life

What does it mean to be fit for life?

Well, maybe activities that condition your body, or maybe your mind. Maybe the ability to adjust to surprises and keep your cool. It could mean anything to you.
I selected an image of a very high mountain for my blog. I climbed Annapurna III (Nepal) in a challenging environment. Its a good visual to describe how I make friends with surprise, and we had plenty of them on the expedition! Don't know about you, but surprises come at me every day, and I do everything I can to adjust to the arrival with challenging practice runs. How do I do it? Ski off into the trees along the ski patrol boundary rope. Descend on the bike into the turns at 35 mph with fresh spring potholes to jump. Buy real estate . . .
Life is now full of really interesting surprises, and the Hubbel telescope brings back the evidence of more time acceleration constantly. Anyone who isn't aware of this has found their "happy place". If you haven't found yours yet, I'm betting you have a lot of company. Adjustment to surprise is my goal every minute.
I wasn't built or born into into it like my brother. He's a boundary skier too. Hang gliders, anything that gets him off something with air. I credit him with an "aha" moment though. On one of his walls he placed a wood carved set of letters "adjust". He could have leveled it on the nail, but insisted hanging it at an an angle. The architect in me would level it. Next day, angled again. That's when I realized the only way for me to adjust is to choose "the edge". Some edges get me in the zone, some don't. Edges are useful. They clue me in to where my reaction to surprise needs a little refinement.
I was recently invited by a prominent website to post a story about myself. Uh-oh. If I did post,"what would the neighbors think"? But then, what would they think if someone told them I had said no to climbing a fabulously beautiful and dangerous mountain in a foreign country full of amazing humans and experiences?
All Bets Were Off with myself. I wrote it.
It's good timing for me to write anything related to a healthy lifestyle. We have a healthcare emergency in this country. Too many need medical attention for problems that could have been easily avoided by compensating for a life in a luxurious country with a little movement and excitement. For those who choose to maintain their health with a lifestyle change, its never too late. Ever!

My healthy lifestyle has four catagories - what I eat, breathe, think, challenge my body to do, and how much I do of each. Of these, three can become addictions, so I practice “self-management”.
They didn’t name it “comfort food” accidentally. Food can easily replace intimacy with others and ourselves. It can derail what psychologists call individuation. Food can become the “bubble wrap” that mimics the protection we received as infants and children. Breathing is not on my addiction list. I can’t overdo breathing. Cyclists and swimmers have the largest hearts. That's plenty of breathing to cycle that blood at rapid speed and clean it up!

Living in my head is too easy for me. As a dyslexic, I use the right and left sides of my brain at the same time, using more of my brain than people who use either the left or the right. I have a 3D program running all the time. Its my personal video game. But, there's a problem with all this fun. It blocks the transition from Thinking to Doing.
What I have discovered is athletics overrides the left side of my brain and I get in pure intuitive mode. I take it as it comes, and that's it. My brain starts firing all synapses without any analysis at all. For me, a miracle. I love Jill Bolte Taylor's story about her brain "stroke of insight". Her description of it is exactly what I experience.
When I was asked by a website to contribute to a Healthy Lifestyle section for people who want to do athletic activities when they don't have the motivation, I agreed. There are however, limits to what you do.
Challenging the body too far triggers a massive stress reaction that short circuits the immune system’s response and creates a longer recovery. The body starts feeding on it’s own muscle.
Feeling superhuman can lead to our demise. We all know people who get a personal trainer. It’s all good until the trainer isn’t there. They gradually lose their resolve. The self-loathing kicks in and the cycle returns to nowhere.
What didn’t happen? "Individuation" creates self-management.
I relate to M. Scott Peck's comment in one of his interviews decades ago. When the interviewer asked him how does one know when they are done with therapy, Peck replied "when you know you are your own best therapist". That's individuation to me.
Another close friend, Robert Fulghum, a master at one-liners, reacted to one of my left brain episodes several months ago "Just know the difference between giving up and letting go." Not what I wanted to hear at all. Dang. More "work" to do, not realizing letting go didn't require any work. I really thought I was more evolved.
My focus with my readers is challenging the body within reason, feeding it with good stuff, and reminding the mind how to know the difference between giving up and letting go. These have been major challenges in my own life and continue to be.
It's never over even when I think its over. There's more. And more . . .
What's the payoff here? Why even try? Why suffer? Why . . .
I can't tell you what it will do for you, but if you want a challenge, you can choose guidelines for self-management in your life. You can learn to depend on yourself and trust your intuition rather than on others to do it for you.
And you can take your friends with you to keep you company.