In Training

I haven't written much about my physical health in a while, suffice it to say that sitting for 9 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week, takes its toll. The back aches, the eyes blur, and the... well, we'll leave it with back and eyes for the time being.

In any case, things are about to be shaken up in a few short weeks. I'm going to be unemployed! Huzzaaa... what was that again? Yup, after being extended from 4 months to 13 months at Disney, I am about to reach my last extension. Then the playing field changes, and for at least one month, I will no longer take my seat in the shitty chair with the corroding back support and the poor lighting that magnifies the deleterious effects of an otherwise thoroughly adjusted computer screen. Instead, I will fly to Spain. On a plane. To cross the plain. In the rain. AND NOT ONCE COMPLAIN.

I've had a hankering, ever since Junior year of high school, to embark down the French route of El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. For those unfamiliar, it's a roughly 500-mile pilgrimage route that starts (among many places) in St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France, traverses Basque Country and the high meseta, and settles into stormy Galicia, ultimately culminating at Cape Finisterre, considered in Medieval times to be the end of the world. Is it ironic that I finally have the time and resources to walk there in 2012?

This morning, I completed my first 14-mile training walk to test out my mettle and my Merrells. I walked from Glendale to Chinatown to Silver Lake and back to Glendale via Los Feliz. To my advantage, the weather was pleasant, the hills minimal, the way familiar, and the feet new to the experience. I completed the trek in four and a half hours, stopping along the way to watch a brown widow spider kill a caterpillar and to buy a lunch of my own. Mapquest told me I should have finished in 5 1/2 hours... Umm...

One of my constant concerns with my body is overdoing it. I've screwed up my shoulder doing weights and my hamstring during Capture the Flag (getting old sucks), and Vishnu knows I've had issues with the heat on the track. As I sit here typing this, I've been back for five hours. My fingers are no longer swollen, though my legs and feet are not used to this degree of walking. I managed to avoid blisters but did feel hot spots. I will probably wake up tomorrow and hobble into work as the stiffness sets in. I remind myself that this is training, but will the little training I can manage over the next few weeks suffice? I mean, I will be repeating this walk every day of the week for four weeks. Actually, I take it back; this will be a mid-length walk.

As much as the pilgrimage itself is about faith in general, I suppose it will also be a test of faith in my body. Lately, with all the sitting, I have begun to feel a lot older than my coworkers remind me, and I wonder if the Camino will make this better or worse. It then begs the question of what comes after? More sitting? Most likely... But, perhaps, I will one day find a place with better chairs and better lighting. Who knows for sure? Those are things to address on the long walk. In the mean time, it's time to rest and plan, rest and plan.

The Upcoming Year

Wow... I'm really having trouble remembering the last couple of weeks. I think that's just the nature of the year: January starts off with the slow, post-holiday hangover, continues into March's bowl of cosmic cereal, realizes it's been dawdling at about August, blazes through the rest of October and November and explodes into exhaustion at the end of December. Then the cycle starts again. Whee.

Seriously, though, the holidays were a particularly blurry blur this year, and now 2012 has begun. I sacrificed the midnight "Hurrah!" so I could see the year's first sunrise over the dunes of Death Valley. And you know? It didn't matter that I had traveled by myself. I was surrounded by similarly minded people, and the night before, I was invited to dine with a family who then purchased my dinner (part of the "New Year's Special" menu, a.k.a. the same mediocre fare for ten extra dollars). All in all, what could have been an unbearably lonely weekend turned into a lovely experience, and how ironic that it should take place in the shadow of the Valley of Death.

I'm not making as many resolutions this year. Frankly, I overburdened myself for 2011, "My Year," and I forgot 75% of them before February even hit. I believe I had intended it to be the year of the relationship, when, in fact, it turned out to be my most independent year ever. I sacrificed the late nights for the most sunrises I'd seen in years, but I also sacrificed most of my sense of belonging to anything.

For 2012, I'd like to reverse that, but not by making a checklist of all the same old friends I haven't heard from in years and painstakingly contacting all of them to rekindle something that had never ignited. My adventures in 2011 taught me that relying solely on any one person is not healthy or enjoyable for either party. The people I've met on my landmark quests, though our relationships have not endured past a conversation, have reawakened two things that had been missing during all the time and effort I'd put into maintaining crumbling relationships of the past: curiosity and joy.

A socially healthy person (at least in this society) makes new friends throughout his/her life, so attain social health, the time has come to start expanding. If I can talk to a new person every week, it would lead to the sort of breakthrough I spent the last year convincing myself was impossible. All I need are guts, practice, and a willingness to let slide. It's a big risk, but one I'm willing to take if it means being a social animal once again. Of all the people I meet for the first time, at least one has to stick around for the second. Maybe two. Maybe that will lead to a bunch. Then, perhaps, I can stop feeling like a monk outside the abbey. After all, even monks have their brothers.