What Happened?

I pulled out some pictures from my trip to Peru eight years ago, and while Craig looks much the same, I scarcely recognize the slimmer and more vibrant version of me in the photos. I am now, perhaps, 20 pounds heavier than I was then, and my face has settled into a softer and weaker rendering of masculinity. The hard lines of my jaw have all but disappeared these days, and the eyes in the mirror no longer communicate the unfettered joy and danger that, for good or ill, defined that young man in Peru, or hell, the young man who left and came home.

So what happened?

I blew my knee out a couple times and fell off the workout wagon, I guess, and stopped treating my body like a temple; and I had to quit school before the boys were born. The absence of concentrated and violent intellectual challenge has had much the same effect as the absence of concentrated and violent physical activity: the product of both being an overwhelming and near-fatal ennui.

I guess I fell out of love with myself, or stopped trusting my own instincts. I don't know, it's not as though my instincts have ever brought me any kind of tangible benefit or long-lasting contentment. I remember, though, waking from my midafternoon nap in the Ishinca River valley and being so slain by the mountains and the river, and by the benediction of a walk with my Friend, that despite my fatigue and rotten altitude sickness, I hiked and sang up the side of the mountain (I did stop singing at about 12,000 feet when I had to throw up about every 20 yards). From the outside, it sounds like mawkishness, a silly response to situational inspiration, but I know better. It didn't just happen on the side of the mountain, or on holidays or special occasions. I routinely allowed myself to be moved, to not take things in stride. I don't know what happened, or what changed, or what now seals me off from that dynamic experience of the world, but I need to find it again, desperately. I know I must in many ways be serious and solid these days, and I am, but if I don't find some way to reconnect to that vitality, I am pretty sure it's absence will eventually kill me.

much peace,
tjb