I Have Aged

I have aged again, some new energy has moved through me.  I am closer to dying or I am closer to healing, it’s hard to tell which.  The feelings in my body, so strange at times.  Is that my kidneys aching?  The swells of blood that occasional flush through my body, from the sacrum up through the ribs and shoulders, and down through the feet.  Is that magic, or is that a mess?  The months of pain in my guts is subsiding and I am grateful.  Slowly back-stepping out of crisis, the pangs lessen each day, the appetite improves.  And food is so good!  And the side effects I try not to dwell: steroids, anti-napalm-biotics, protonix.  Suppressing my suppressed immune system, swelling my joints to ache, they snap like seasoned piñon.  I reflect on last summer’s hobbling on these meds, but clearly the detriment of my symptoms was worse.  The suffering had to stop, I had lost track, I have been floating.  I am still floating, though my feet walk more each day and my face, for a moment, has felt the sun.  Perhaps I will find the ground again.

I have aged again, I feel more love and have grown more unattached.  Each day is somehow different yet I’ve grown fond of that which is constant.  I don’t care that it’s winter, I like the short days.  I’ve never said that before.  I may only fully realize the absence of sun once its warmth has returned.  This morning’s sloppy gray streets and skies such a metaphor for my guts.  I woke at three in the morning, tight, turning, turbulent.  Consciousness remained through some strange exhausted buzz behind my eyes, and now, as morning has turned to afternoon, I stare in a daze at monotonous space.  The drugs, my sterile insides insight mild nausea though food keeps creeping through, sensations of assimilation.  This aging is strange, am I wiser or more disenfranchised?  I visualize the strong-calved peak bagger I once was.  Full suspension climbs up technical single-track and the joy of the downhill earned.  Now just the fatiguing thought of gearing up for an adventure is daunting.  I visualize however, see myself strong in the shadows, feet dangling in Dominguez Creek.  I see white blood cells swimming through my waters, numbers growing, teaching each other the difference between the utilitarian and the malignant.  Outside my window in the drab, I am a dove nestled in branches, observing in silence.  There is something boundless.  There is something beautiful.   

My face, for a moment, has felt the sun.
Jan 27th, Colorado River