The dog and I were out for our morning walk when I had an epiphany. We walk early and late at this campground, between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., and between 6 p.m. and dusk, to avoid the blazing summer sun. Whose idea was it to camp in AUGUST in the DESERT with NO SHADE? Three strikes, but I’m not yet out. Happily I’m moving Sunday to a mountain hamlet with lots of shade, and I hope to stay there for 3 weeks.
But back to the epiphany. We were walking in the group campground, which is lower than the bluff I am on, but still has the sandy soil and sage scents that make this part of country so appealing. And it’s shady under sycamore, pine, pepper, and other trees. When I arrived 10 days ago, I was told not to choose a site in this area. But I can see that it’s not only shady, but seems to have good cell reception. It was the cell reception that put me on the shadeless bluff in the first place. If I ever come here again, I’ll see if I might be able to camp in the group area, perhaps maybe by paying extra beyond the campground membership that lets me camp at any one of 60+ campgrounds for 3 weeks at a time with no further charge.
But back to the epiphany. Scattered much? Down in the group area, I came across a children’s play structure with climbing tires, bars, and a slide. I had seen it before, but as I’m not a child, it didn’t register as something exciting.
This time, I started staring at the bar, which is about rib height for me. As I was staring at it, a thought began to emerge from the recesses of my brain. Slowly coming into focus in my mind is a similar bar in City Park in New Orleans, behind the Botanical Garden. The bar is part of a fitness area that goes mostly unused since the park built a bigger and better fitness area nearby. In this older area, I would pause on my dog walking duties, hitch my dog’s leash to the post, grab the bar and lean forward to stretch my back, and to stretch my hamstrings. I would raise my leg to the bar, rest it there, and lean forward to further stretch my hamstrings.
This hamstring-stretching activity is critical to my wellbeing, indeed to my very mobility. I once had very bad lower back pain, which went on for years. I was convinced I had all kinds of horrible diseases. It got so bad sometimes I could hardly walk, or could walk only hunched over in pain like some 200-year-old cartoon character. Finally, I prevailed upon my family doctor to order an Xray. The conclusion was that I had the typical kind of breakdown of organic matter between the vertebrae, which happens between ages 35 and 50 or so, and that causes pain. I don’t have the scientific facts at hand, but I do recall the doctor telling me I needed physical therapy and it would cost about $250 for the first visit, and then more than $100 for each subsequent visit. Going home, I started googling lower back pain and physical therapy. Some kind physical therapists made videos showing exercises to prevent lower back pain. What I understood is that the powerful hamstrings in the back of the legs are the culprits much of the time. When the hamstrings are tight, they cause a pulling down and pressure on the lower back. When they are stretched and loose, the pressure is relieved. The videos showed exactly how to stretch the hamstrings. I tried it. And it WORKED! No pain. No surgery. No depleted bank account.
And that brings me back to the bar in the children’s climbing area in the lower group campground where I’m not allowed to camp but which has great Internet.
I’ve been gone from my routines in City Park since June 30, or about 6 weeks. I have not walked my dog past the fitness area behind the Botanical Garden, and thus I have not stretched my hamstrings. In my mind, that bar in the old fitness area is where you stretch your hamstrings.
In the past few days, I’ve been having lower back pain. At first I didn’t connect it to my lack of stretching. I also know that lower back pain is associated with the emotion of grief. I found this out from author and healer Louse Hay. Whenever someone says their back hurts, I always ask: upper back or lower back? From what I understand, upper back pain is often associated with anger, and the lower with loss. So I figured my own pain was some kind of grief I was experiencing. I’ve come to the point where when I feel grief in my body, I don’t have to identify or fix it right away. I figure my body is going through some process, and it will do its own thing. However, I also know there is also a physical aspect to pain, and in my case, it has to do with my hamstrings tightening up and pulling on my lower back.
As I stared at the bar in the children’s area, I thought: “Wow! I haven’t stretched my hamstrings in a really long time. I wonder if I could do it here?” As you can see, the synapses weren’t firing all that well. But the epiphany finally came. Yes, this bar is just like the one at “home.”
In fact, this sandy spot where my dusty black boots are standing on this increasingly warming morning with the dog nearby is actually my new home. I say that when I gave up my leased home in New Orleans that I was “de-homing” myself. But I actually just shifted the concept of home from the 1,500 square feet all in one place to a scattered collection of spaces that are alternately home and not home. Home is The Tiny, and the awning out front, and my whole campsite, and my Durango, and the laundromat at the campground, and the hiking trails, and whatever dog park I can locate, and spiritual support group meetings, and everywhere and nowhere. I’m on this planet. Wherever I am standing, sitting, lying, or squatting down and doing my dishes by the spigot is my home.
So upon my enlightenment, I hitched the dog’s leash to the play structure, much as I used to do behind the Botanical Garden, and I proceeded to bend and stretch and elongate my hamstrings. Sitting here, I feel just a little lower back pain. It will take daily stretching therapy for me to be out of the pain. And if some grief wants to make its way through there, I’m OK with that. At least I’m doing my part, stretching my hamstrings, at home in the world, wherever that is.