LAST LEGS – Giving My All to Walking Tall

On the self-consciousness scale of one to ten, I’m about a six. It’s far from an obsession, but it does enter my mind now and then: How do I look or sound—or smell, for that matter—to others?

But the list of things I’m self-conscious about has seldom included how I walk. Until about my fifties, that is. That’s when putting one foot nicely in front of the other started becoming something I could no longer take for granted.

MY ACHING BACK
I was a jock all the way through college and beyond. In high school, I’d played football for a leathery ex-Marine coach who labeled a sniveling coward anyone who shied from blocking or tackling head-first.

When I was a junior in college, I was in a bad car accident. Most of the damage involved having my face pushed in, but I always wondered if any musculoskeletal after-effects might show up.

Then there was about 20 years of ice hockey. Oh, and flipping 60- to 80-pound canoes up and down from my shoulders—something I’ve kept doing into my mid-seventies.

So, though I suspect none of these factors by itself resulted in significant impairment, together, I’m afraid they stirred up a perfect storm of damage to my poor spine.

TILT!
I’ll never forget the day, about six years ago, when my orthopedic surgeon at Mayo showed me that CT scan of my spine. It wasn’t just a bit worse for wear; it looked like the backbone of someone who’d just jumped off a cliff…and landed on his tail bone.

The surgery alleviated the worst of my referred-pain symptoms, but it could not fix what decades of degeneration had wrought. Alas, the 15-degree sideways S-curve in my spine remains.

Crumbling discs, narrowing nerve pathways, bone-on-bone abrasion. By rights, I should be a cripple…but I’m determined not to look like it. So, of course, I’ve  grown quite conscious of trying to stand straight, walk tall, and not limp.

By the time I knew what was happening I’d already lost the battle between dexterity and gravity.

RUDE AWAKENING
Now that I’m in my mid-seventies, my screwy spine is just part of my posture problem. There’s also the inevitable wear and tear of aging on one’s bones and muscles. Not to mention balance, that precious asset whose denigration is a dead giveaway for old folks and drunks.

(I sometimes wonder, if I ever got pulled over on suspicion of DWI, would I be able to walk the straight line—even if I hadn’t touched a drop? I doubt it.)

That reminds me, I’ve recently had a couple of sobering falls. One time I unknowingly stepped off a curb, and by the time I knew what was happening I’d already lost the battle between dexterity and gravity. 

 
FLATTENING THE CURVE
A few years ago, my wife Sally started pointing out that I slouch. Ever since, I’ve made an effort to suck in my gut, rock my hips forward and pull my shoulders back.

Doing so actually feels pretty good. At first, the resident pain in my lower back eases and I feel younger, stronger. I imagine that Sally’s not seeing me as a stooped old man. After a few minutes, though, it starts to feel like a lot of work. I let go of the effort…and of my short-lived fantasy.

     Every time I pretend the curve’s still there,
     it’s like trying to bend a two-by-four.

I’ve come to realize why standing straight is so hard for me: When most folks rock their hips forward to stand straighter, they’re actually flattening out the smalls of their backs—those inward curves most people have just above their butts.

But after my lumbar spinal fusion I no longer have a small of the back. That surgery, by fusing together the three vertebra central to the lumbar spine, flattened out the curve and rendered it more or less rigid. So every time I pretend the curve’s still there, it’s like trying to bend a two-by-four—one anchored, by the way, by four three-inch titanium screws.

LITTLE BIG MAN
Walking tall is about more than appearances or pride; it’s also a survival strategy.

Some years ago, my friend Silverio and I spent a very late night in a bar on Garibaldi Square, one of Mexico City’s seediest attractions, notorious not just for its glut of mariachi bands, but for its rogues gallery of thieves, beggars and drunks.

As we’re stumbling out of the place in the wee hours, a group of four or five wiry young men approach and start harassing us. All five-foot-eight of Silverio puffs out his chest, swaggers right up to the punks and gets in their faces.

They backed off, opting to look for someone less formidable.

Later, I asked Silverio about the incident. He explained that, growing up in that close-quarters city of 20-million, he’d learned the hard way that stature is about more than height; it’s also about attitude, the way you carry that height.

To this day, when I take our dog, Sylvia, out for her last walk before bed each night, believe it or not I find myself channeling Silverio, aware of exactly what the way I walk says about me and my vulnerability.

        Like my dancer alter ego, I’ll hobble
        as if no one’s watching.

HOBBLING WITH GRACE
Especially to us humans, a spine fit for walking also means freedom. It’s hard to imagine losing that elemental ability to go wherever we want, whenever we want, under our own power.

But lose it we will. Aging and physics assure it. In the meantime, I plan to fight the inevitable at every turn. Can’t walk so well? I suppose I’ll get a brace or use a walker. Still can’t walk? There’s always a wheelchair. (My mom got around pretty well in one till she was 100.)

And what about the self-consciousness? I guess I’m counting on its waning at the same rate as my abilities. Like my dancer alter ego, I’ll learn to hobble as if no one’s watching.

Something I now know that I didn’t when I started writing this post: Consciousness—of others, of Nature, of joy—is just too precious to waste any more of it on how I walk.

“Look outside and you will see yourself. Look inside and you will
find yourself.”  ~ DREW GERALD

THE HUNGER OF MY STEPS – An Old(ish) Man's Reflection on Mobility

Many thanks to my dear old friend, Robin Easton -- blogger and author of Naked In Eden -- for inspiring this post with her recent Facebook post about healing and her transcendent bonds with Nature.

                                          ~/ - /~        ~/ - /~        ~/ - /~    

Some time in the winter of 1946 I took my first sips. That was all my wobbly little legs and feet could handle.

From then on, though, my abilities—and my appetite for movement—grew exponentially. I played; I jumped; I ran, sometimes just for the sheer joy of it. Eventually I was playing every sport I could. As an adult I skied; I hiked; I led others on hikes. Even in my 60s I was taking stairs, both up and down, two or three at a time. It was delicious.

I got used to that abundance of steps—those flavors of speed, of rhythm, of palpable heartbeat felt all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. And lately, as
I notice my stride slowing, perhaps shortening a bit, I crave them all the more.

The length and number of one’s steps may abate, but the hunger for them—especially for a person whose whole identity has been about moving, learning, testing his senses—never does.     

Nowadays, I suppose to compensate for the increasingly cautious measure of my gait, I savor not just the number, but the quality, of those steps. I actually think about them and the wonder of being able to move under my own power.

Nowhere do I appreciate this more than in my work as a hospice volunteer, where
I see rather intimately what it looks like to lose the nourishment of one’s steps.

          It was like waving a nice juicy steak 
          in front of a hungry guy with no teeth. 
          I was a starving man.

CHOMPIN’ AT THE BIT 
Travel adds spice to the dish, helps one appreciate the lusciousness of each step. I’ve learned more about life and love and beauty—and certainly about myself—from my adventures in Mexico and other Latin American countries than
I ever could have discovered staying home.

A couple years ago I traveled to Cuba. The trip involved a lot of walking, from exploring the back streets of Old Havana to climbing rugged hills in the western region of Viñales. But I was in pain.

For quite a few years an impinged nerve in my lumbar spine had been worsening, manifesting as intense phantom pain in my left hip. By the time I went to Cuba, I could only walk or stand for a few minutes at a time. I hated being the “old guy” who had to sit out a hike or, at best, lag behind.

Problem was, every other part of my body and spirit put me in about the top ten percent of men my age for fitness. It was like waving a nice juicy steak in front of a hungry guy with no teeth. I was a starving man.

But last August an incredible surgeon at the Mayo Clinic gave me my teeth back. Free from pain, and with a back that now feels like that of a much younger man, I’m once again able to give my wandering feet what they so crave: freedom. Freedom to taste still-more-exotic places, test my capacity for wonder, delight as much in the journey as the destination.

I’ve no idea how many more steps are left on my plate. But I’m going to relish each one, not as if it were the first—for that tentative step back in 1946 was simply instinct. No, I’ll relish each one as if it were my last. I guess I believe that these precious autumn-of-life strides, so full of knowledge, memory and intention, are the ones whose taste I will most remember as I slowly, inevitably, starve away to nothing.

CALL ME CAP'N CRUNCH – Walking On Acorns

While out on my evening walk yesterday, I found myself doing something that's become, for me, a harbinger of autumn. I crunched dry acorns underfoot. In fact, I go out of my way, to the very edges of the sidewalk where most of the iconic little oak bombs lie, swept aside by the elements and a hundred other walkers.

Whole acorns don't crunch so easily; even the broken ones still have a little meat
to cushion the blow. But those little caps, they're the crème de la crème of crunch, delivering a crunch so deep and satisfying you can feel it in your head.

Be careful, though. If you step and there's no give, there you are on a bed of ball bearings, and the crunch you hear might indeed be in your head.

Here, fittingly, is one of my favorite posts in my series, 101 Tips on How to Be 
In the Moment.

 TIP #65

Celebrate your own footsteps.

A whisper through crispy autumn leaves; the earnest crunch of dried acorns; the thin chatter of a kicked pebble.

Though they bear the weight of the world, let your feet proclaim their joy…not just in getting somewhere, but in the going.

WALKING – As If For the First Time

(This is the fourth post in my series of reflections, As If For the First Time, describing the most mundane of daily activities through a fresh lens, one of innocence and wonder.)

Gosh, my feet feel good today! How about yours? Are you conscious of your feet as you sit there?

I actually think about my feet quite often. I wonder what it is that allows those, the lowest tracts of flesh and bone on our bodies, to put up with such a beating, one that other parts would surely protest. Over and again, they bear the full weight of our being—not just physically, but sometimes, it seems, emotionally.

Such lightness of spirit makes each stride flow 

from the last like water down a gentle rapids.

But today I feel no such burden. Why is it that my lightness of spirit makes each stride flow from the last like water down a gentle rapids? That's the way my walking feels today: laughing, liquid, free.

I'm so glad I put on these wool socks. It's more than just their warmth; something about the way wool defies dampness that feels so snug. And the real miracle: if they were on my neck they'd itch; on my feet they don't.

Step by step, a glow starts in my feet and spreads up my calves and through my thighs. Like engine oil, it wicks in between moving parts, salving the friction, cooling the pain.

I'm aware of the complex mechanics of the walking motion. Something so automatic that I'm seldom more aware of it than of my breathing. I watch its workings as a boy watches a steam shovel, marveling at the coordination of so many complex movements—hip, to knee, to ankle, to toes.

I picture muscle and sinew grasping and pulling, tensing and pushing, sliding freely against one another in easy synchrony.

Then there's the matter of balance. How in the world can such a vertical creature go through such a range of motions—starting, stopping, jumping, leaning—and still manage to stay upright? I try to be aware of some of the constant adjustments hundreds of my muscles are making, but they're just too subtle.

What's left is a bright, spacious, inviting place 
for kinder thoughts to settle.

Like any meditation, my focus on the repetition pushes aside thoughts I'd planned to leave at home, but which still managed to stow away somehow: worries, deadlines, self-doubt. Step by step I imagine them nudged from my consciousness, dropping to the path and fading into the distance behind me. 

        

What's left is a bright, spacious, inviting place for kinder thoughts to settle. And they do . . . as if they'd been searching for it. They alight full of wisdom and certainty. I feel abundant.

Hope, joy, connection with all things and all times—sometimes it feels like my strides are the strokes of a pump, not just impelling blood and oxygen, but drawing in and circulating those ample thoughts. 

I sense that my consciousness is shared with 
land and sky, with water, trees and birds.

My thoughts move easily back and forth between soaring possibilities and Nature's constant reminders of my attachment to my body—and, by way of my happy feet, to the earth.

Today, at least while walking, I know myself body and my soul. I thank both for bringing me here to this place of awareness and gratitude. And I sense that my consciousness is shared with land and sky, with water, trees and birds. As sure as I celebrate them and this precious moment, they celebrate me.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

 TIP #65

Celebrate your own footsteps.

A whisper through crispy autumn leaves; the earnest crunch of dried acorns; the thin chatter of a kicked pebble.

Though they bear the weight of the world, let your feet proclaim their joy…not just in getting somewhere, but in the going.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – 101 Little Tips

 TIP #74

Celebrate your own footsteps.

Feet ... those poor, thankless servants, ever first to shoulder the load, ever last to see the sun. Yet, above the quiet toil, they proclaim their joy—if only we allow them, and listen.

    Let your steps whisper through dry autumn leaves. Encourage their earnest crunch on dried acorns, their squeals of delight compressing dry snow. Indulge their mischievous cracking of ice edges undercut by melt water. Abide the thin chatter of a kicked pebble. 
    Celebrate their joy and yours, not just in getting somewhere, but in the going.