Shuffle off to Buffalo
Today I put on my running clothes and went out the door, encouraged by my time yesterday at the gym and determined to find a way to work out today, too. I strapped my right arm into the sling, making it as snug as I could, and found I was able to do an inelegant run-shuffle for a few minutes at a time without causing too much pain to my shoulder. What a windy, cloudy day out there! But being out there was fine. I made my way over to the track at King school in about 30 minutes. Once there I made four laps around the track (might even have been five), running most of the way. I finally figured out that my shoulder took the jouncing best when I grabbed a handful of my sweatshirt at midsection height with my right hand. That anchor, combined with the restraint afforded by the sling, minimized the bouncing of my arm.
I’ve tried to put thoughts of training for races or reaching mileage goals right out of my head for now and instead am attempting to concentrate on being thankful that I can still get out and move.
Feeling pain has brought up some dark thoughts for me in the last few days, uncomfortable thoughts that when they occur jerk me out of my complacent little life. My pain came to me via an accident, so it’s emotionally untainted. But it’s led me to think of pain inflicted deliberately, as by war or by torture. How can we human beings inflict bodily pain on one another? Damn, it hurts! How do we ever justify causing pain in another? Pain is incontrovertible. When you have it, you suffer. I don’t know how anyone who has ever experienced pain can cause it in another without doing sad harm to his or her own soul. Inflicting pain contaminates both the inflictor and the afflicted. I don’t find it surprising that the perpetrators of domestic violence are usually people who have themselves been abused.
What does this have to do with running? Running is a way of connecting body and soul, for me a connection that is necessary in order to live in this world. If the body feels cherished, the mind and the spirit likely do too. When we injure our bodies, or attack the bodies of others, we do harm to our whole being.
I’m going to the doctor Wednesday. Until I do I’m looking to treat this old body as well as I can.
I’ve tried to put thoughts of training for races or reaching mileage goals right out of my head for now and instead am attempting to concentrate on being thankful that I can still get out and move.
Feeling pain has brought up some dark thoughts for me in the last few days, uncomfortable thoughts that when they occur jerk me out of my complacent little life. My pain came to me via an accident, so it’s emotionally untainted. But it’s led me to think of pain inflicted deliberately, as by war or by torture. How can we human beings inflict bodily pain on one another? Damn, it hurts! How do we ever justify causing pain in another? Pain is incontrovertible. When you have it, you suffer. I don’t know how anyone who has ever experienced pain can cause it in another without doing sad harm to his or her own soul. Inflicting pain contaminates both the inflictor and the afflicted. I don’t find it surprising that the perpetrators of domestic violence are usually people who have themselves been abused.
What does this have to do with running? Running is a way of connecting body and soul, for me a connection that is necessary in order to live in this world. If the body feels cherished, the mind and the spirit likely do too. When we injure our bodies, or attack the bodies of others, we do harm to our whole being.
I’m going to the doctor Wednesday. Until I do I’m looking to treat this old body as well as I can.
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