the end of drudgery

Often when I sat in the gym on the seated row machine, looking around the grey equipment, I had a curious experience. I felt like I was looking in on our society as one from another society or from a century ago. I saw us like rats on ferriswheels, encaged, in an artificial environment, human yet almost robotic. I felt bleak like I did when I read 1984.

I never thought of not going, though. Never. And I didn't hate it even though I often had a mini existential crisis there. I just did it and felt a little unhuman mentally. When dwelling in a body that stashes blood in the feet making them the hue of luscious berries, whilst the other organs are in a state of weak jealousy, you take rat wheels with gratefulness. Cardio helps my low blood pressure a lot, and instantly. It is like life to me, because blood is life.

Years ago on the exercise bike, I would try to inspire myself to push through the discomfort by reminding myself that this was so I could get well enough to have a baby. Now that this deepest dream has come to fruition twice, I chant that I want strong legs so I can dance. I have to have a reason to get my heart rate up to that unconfortable can't-talk level. I don't like to think about POTS much, though it is the reason I am there. It doesn't uplift me to dwell on the labels which describe the challenges in my body. Apart from grief days when I'm very unwell, and bad recoveries from 'normal' outings which sting me with their wrongness, I tend to manage my health and it's requirements without giving it much mental space now days. Just as I brush my hair and dress by humdrum habbit, so I take keep my diet, manage my supplements, and exercise.

So, exercise at the gym was a fine yet drab peice in my life. For ten years, almost without break. I can't even lie down unwell for a half a day without my blood pressure dropping in a very life affecting way due to lack of exercise.
Ballet, that's desert. My come-alive form of activity, although the muscle recoveries are a significant cost.

When Covid-19 sprang into my unsuspecting reality, I was not excited about outdoor rides. I didn't like that I couldn't get my heartrate up to precisely 170 bpm, for exactly a 2 minute interval, in a completely wind free environment, on the one not-squeaky exercise bike at the gym, looking out at the carpark watching people buy pizza and park their cars with more skill than me one hundred percent of the time.

I wanted that; that blandness.
I wanted it because it was normal.

My first ride was on Ben's bike. He is 6 foot, and I am not. I was precariously balanced on top of it, riding down roads at peak hour, and because the frame was such a stretch for me I soon had blisters on my hands. I was so unstable on it I couldn't even use my arm to indicate and my saddle was bruised for days.

Next I tried my baby sister's bike and it was just right. It was a wonderful size for me, but I was frustrated that the one gear wasn't hard enough to get my heart beating fast in the minimum amount of time that I could achieve at the gym. And I didn't like riding on the road.

Eventually I decided to try the rail trail which my house is located on, because I hadn't any fondness for wondering if cars would treat me with respect. After 2 years of living along the trail, I finally set off down it.

I got a whiff of fire smoke in the first minute, and it took me to childhood and early marriage holidays and golden autumns. I had never smelt anything at the gym other than sweat, my own and others, or men who had held the trigger too long on their aerosols, so I was pleased.

I rode past old people with frames and on scooters, and pondered their lives and their courage as they fill their days without physical prowess. I saw two ducks splashing away with glee in their muddy playdate. I involuntarily smiled. You don't smile at the gym. It's not cool. You will look like you're a real person, with real feelings.

As I rode on, to my amazement I found myself in the country. I live near the city centre where Ben rides to work, so I wasn't expecting rural properties so soon. Trees and green surrounded me, and dappled sunlight littered the path with excruciating loveliness. I smelt dung and it made my heart leap as I located the cows of it's making. I smelt sheep. I'm a kiwi who will never tire of the scent of sheep. I sniff my balls of wool with relish. I saw people tending their glorious horses. I saw alpacas, stubby ponies, and great danes. Rabbits were nibbling on the side of the path.
The air was crisp, and the sky was beginning to paint it's end of day pictures. I felt the time of day, the almost twilight, was too beautiful for me to inhale. By now I was puffing and sore and struggling, with no idea what my heart rate was. But I didn't care if it was 120 or 170 bpm, the stats didn't seem to matter.

Soon it came to deciding to purchase a bike instead of a gym membership. Now I set off with happy anticipation into the cold evening air when I'm feeling unwell, and arrive home in better health almost invariably. It still astounds me almost as freshly as the first time a decade ago, like it's some bizarre magic trick. Will I ever adjust to this back to front cure? And now, it's not drudgery.

To find this aliveness and happiess, through being forced to exercise for ten gruelling years, is so bright. To find it from another forced event: a pandemic.

It is like many other things that have happened to me, a books worth, of unexpected blessings. I have a yellow book with them all in and more to write.
Ben cosleeps with our babies because I need blocks of sleep and we wouldn't train them that their cries go unheard. This 'imposition' has given our little ones a deep love and trust of Ben that would not have been likely to occur if they'd spent only an hour with him after work each day.
And so, something else life enriching grows up out of this life we would not have signed up for.

Ben and I have no shortage of mutual interests, and we began our cloning early, but he has spent 12 years interested in biking without me sharing in it whatsoever. He is fairly stoked to be looking into baby seats and tail gaiters for family weekend rides.

Time, my friend!
I was told two years: two years and your illness should end.
And now it passes ten years.
I am somewhat healed. That's the terminology I use instead of still unwell. No blasts of recovery, no healing prayer success story, no tale of how I changed my thoughts and overpowered my body's reality, no miraculous diet or curative supplement or medication.

The plant in my garden that I thought was totally dead, not a hint of green, it was slowly working underground. Imperceptibly. And then it budded and I was astounded.
That's my journey, so slow, it's almost imperceptible even to me. But growth takes place in private darkness, hidden away, and I was made by One who views ten years as a minute.

Thinking in decades is strangely hope inducing!
What hopeless or bleak situation will be eliminated in another ten?
What aliveness will come from something still dormant...