I haven't caught a cold in over a year, so this one was a little surprising, but then not when I take into consideration the link between working (out) and getting sick. It's actually working too hard that causes the problem--pushing the body too far, using up the reserves to the point of depletion. Years ago I noticed the link between doing an intense exercise session to the point of exhaustion (usually when I hadn't exercised in a while) and coming down with a scratchy throat, followed by a full upper respiratory virus soon after. Being ill would then force to delay the next workout session, and it was hard to get a routine going. But eventually I figured out that exercising below max allowed me to continue longer term which had the most benefit in the end. It was difficult because it felt frustrating to be 'under-performing' as it seemed then, but it made the most sense in terms of long-range performance and improvement.
I started feeling ill this time when I pushed myself past a sensible point working on the thesis last week. Was it Friday? I was really wiped out and felt like crap at the end, but felt I had to make the most of this precious 'me time' away from the family. Silly guilt-tinged recriminations. Anyway, I started to feel the first stirrings of the cold I'm now suffering from that day. So it's time to take stock and remember that physical and mental strain are all one as far as the body's immune system are concerned and that if you don't train for the marathon you will suffer!
Now, I'm taking a break and resting up -- body and mind. And I'll resume work on my thesis after regaining my forces. Next time I'll do it properly...
I've been trying to figure out which aspect of my life I should focus on in this blog, and yesterday I decided it had to be the writing of my thesis. It's a turning-point of sorts, the culmination of a process of transformation, and above all it affects every other aspect of my life. So that's what this blog is about. On a wider scale, though, this blog is about being determined and achieving something against the odds. Once, when I was still living Stateside, I asked some of the people closest to me to come up with the one word they felt best described how they viewed me. Most of them I hadn't known for more than a few years, and so they tended to agree on the one term--visionary or something of that nature. I guessed it summed up for them the aspect of myself that they had access to at that time, and I felt there was some truth in it. In a sense, it was expected, and I also felt flattered by it. But my sister surprised me. She said, "Determined. It just came to me. When I think Manajua I think determined". I wasn't thrilled. There's something single-mindedly ruthless about the word. Determined people are selfish people, right? They don't care who they mow down in their inner-demon-driven quest to succeed... But, I had to refelct on this, because my sister has known me for her whole life, and well, she loves me.
I could see what she meant if I thought about it from a different perspective. Take the word determination. Break it into two parts - de and termination - and you realize that it means to stop a process of stopping, to get something moving that has been prevented from forward motion, to revitalize. Determination is not simply momentum for its own sake, its task is to break through the barriers.
I thought of this again last night watching the final episode of 'Last Man Standing', which I've enjoyed so much. Wole won the final event, and therefore the title, with a display of sheer brute determination. A gruelling two-day canoe race across open water was the king-making challenge, and everybody suffered. The two teamplayers (rugby player Jarvis and soccer player Joey) quit near the start. This event favoured the self-reliant only. Anyway, just when it looked like Wole had the race in the bag his canoe ran aground on a coral bank in the shallow waters close to the shore. With Murray (the race favourite) just 100 yards or so behind, Wole was well and truly stuck and he was very very very tired. We watched the big man floundering in the water with arms of lead. He was at the end of his forces. But with bare feet ripped by razor-sharp oral he pushed the craft towards the fre-flowing water. At one point we saw him fall, and he gave up (sacrificed) a chunk of flesh to the reef. I cannot imagine how that must have it. Watching him struggle was mesmerizing, but painful and stomach-turning at the same time. We wanted him to stop, for the unwinnable battle to be over. But then -somehow- Wole managed to get the canoe into a channel, and he was off. The inertia had been broken. He rowed home to victory--bleeding but victorious. He really wanted to win.
What's interesting about this story though, apart from Wole's superhuman effort at the end, is actually what happened at the start of the race. Apart from Jarvis and Joey, both Ed and Wole had been battered by waves and had to struggle to regain control. As I said J and J both gave up (I think they were mainly concerned about becoming sharkfood!), and Ed managed to get back into the race after an hour-long (?) struggle, which just left Wole. He just wasn't able to get his canoe the right way up with him onboard. It was a local who came to his rescue, and made both the race -and his final heroic struggle- possible. A wonderful allegory of that book I just finished 'The Outliers'. Someone has to make your struggle possible in the first place, and determination can sometimes be how you repay the favour they (and the universe) have shown you.
Let's see how many words of my first chapter I can grind out today...
Winter's hard dance
makes ready the ground
for Spring's soft step.
During my first trip to Guyana as an adult back in '97, my father bought me a painting by the artist Eseoghene, entitled 'Moon-gazer'. Eseoghene, or Doris Rogers, was an old friend of my dad's, but still I was taken aback that he made the purchase -happily and generously, two qualities it was difficult to reconcile with his often closed-faced (and tight-fisted) personality. All the same I decided the gift was proffered out of a loving sentiment and accepted it with shy effusiveness and gratitude. E. said it was appropriate. Since we'd started sharing living arrangements he'd become accustomed to my occasional nocturnal vigils at the undressed windows, wordlessly consulting the moon. Sometimes he'd joke about the Italian legend that claims those of us born on December 25 are werewolves. I don't know where that comes from! Typical madcap 'italiania'. But according to that bizarre lore, I guess I was performing some manner of lunatic inner baying. Perhaps... All I know for sure is that since childhood the moon would sometimes call me from my bed, there was some message to impart. Or was it that checking for the white light in the sky was a reassuring ritual during periods of anxiety?
"I see the moon and the moon sees me.
God bless the moon and God bless me".
I used to repeat that verse by rote whenever I glimpsed the moon -by day or night. Didn't even have to think about it. Just one of those childhood rhymes that attaches to your soul, and is only shed after you perform a metamorphosis of the spirit. That's how I realize on this wintry evening in the East Midlands how much of me has changed. When was the last time I automatically recited that incantation? A year ago? Two? Five? No, not that long ago. But still far back enough on my journey for the winds of change to have swept away all trace. I mourn the loss of that prior self just a little, as my heart leaps at the full round luminescence visible from X's patio doors. Low in the sky. So low, it's like we're eye-to-eye the moon and I --taking stock of the history etched in the other one's face -a sad furrow here, an unnoticed dimple there. Still the same, tomorrow different...
