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Walking. Being A Little More Human.

May 24, 2022 by 12 Comments

Monday. 4:48 a.m. Why so early? There is some logic, disturbing as it may seem to some, to catch twilight, or daybreak, or first light or whatever you may want to call it — I have to leave the house precisely 60 minutes from Sunrise. And since Sunrise changes every day, and I have no clue why, my rise-and-go changes daily. For this machine is wound as tight as a Swiss Clock. Precisely (Mostly.) Daily. (Generally.)

So back to the walk. 747 consecutive days on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row. (Almost.)

64° F, feels like 62° F. This is from the Dark Sky App. No bloody chance in hell it’s even close. Wind gusting up to 20 mph. It feels like a brisk 49°. And thank the lightening bolt premonition before I left the house — I put on a windbreaker or this would have been a damn short walk this morning. And be damed, if I’m still not cold.

So, back to the walk. It’s 4:50 a.m. and I’m getting out of the car. There’s only one other car in the parking lot. What sort of other lunatic is up at this hour? In case of a future need, this may be a match for bone marrow transplant, or white cell transplant, there’s gotta be some bone-to-bone connection here.

I sling the straps of my backpack over my shoulders, synch down the straps, lock the car, and walk.

And walk.

And there he is. The owner of the other car. He’s approaching. He’s carrying a white cleaning caddy in his right hand. Two toilet brushes, cleaning supplies, rags. The white of the caddy, is as white as my egrets. It illuminates the darkness.

[Read more…]

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Saturday Morning

April 30, 2022 by 8 Comments

I love going on walks by myself. No pressure to keep up conversation. And there is something about movement that helps me think. To charge an idea with the body’s inertia. To carry a feeling through the distance and watch it grow.

—  Ocean Vuong, The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation (therumpus.net, August 24, 2014)

Photo: Daybreak. 5:49 a.m., April 30, 2022. 41° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.

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Walking. With One (Good) Wing Creatures.

March 12, 2022 by 26 Comments

5:15 a.m. I’m out the door.  Dark Sky is calling for rain. Let’s see.

It’s been ~675 mornings, almost consecutive. Like in a row. I’m on my daybreak walk @ Cove Island Park.

It’s not all glorious Swans and pirouettes.

There she is. Up top. The Gull. She? He? Sorry, with no disrespect intended to whatever it is, I’m old school. Or just old. I don’t know its pronoun, and we’re going with She.

I wasn’t paying attention. Not downward anyway.  And typically, the wildlife clears out-of-the-way when Darth Vader approaches. A 6’1″ human, black hoodie, black jacket, black sweat pants, black gloves, black toque (pronounced tuuuk), and a matching black backpack.  Darth, who recently had foot surgery, happens to be dragging his right leg, with his Sorel boot scraping the asphalt behind him.  So all winged creatures give Darth wide berth.
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Walking. Quiet with Highsmith.

January 27, 2022 by 35 Comments

6:00 a.m. Forget the preamble. Take my word for it. It’s cold.

I twist in my ear buds and cue up Patricia Highsmith’s 1000 page diary on Audible. I’m 900 pages in, the home stretch.  It’s late August, she’s living in France: “My French house is like my life and body. The garden represents work, very hard work, never perfect, never finished, and I find there is hardly one day a year when I can say, ‘It all looks nice.’”

I think about this for a moment, nodding, in full agreement with the metaphor, and work.

I sit in the car, building up the energy to step out in the cold. And she continues, and has me twisting on a follow-on post: “Work is the only thing of importance or joy in life. Trouble begins when one pauses to consider what one has done.”  I noodle on both ends of this sandwich and get out of the car.  Too deep, too early in the morning.

I walk. Shuffling in my Sorel boots, counterclockwise around the park. The Connecticut-Chinook at my back.

The curtain is preparing to rise at 7:10.

It’s Quiet.

“This has to have been a transforming practice – almost two years of quietness,” a friend on FB posits.

I stand looking out over the horizon. The blues. The oranges. The yellows. And all of it blending and shimmering on the water. A Rothko-looking exhibit.

And then I’m back to Highsmith in the 1970’s: “With greater universal education, there is paradoxically greater stupidity. One gets further from the land and nature, instead of being in harmony with it, as were our less educated forebears. We now read about pills and take them—and are afraid to give an honest belch.”

Transformation & Quiet & Harmony.

Hmmmm. 

You know DK, you may have gotten this Thing right.

 

Note: (1) DK @ Daybreak. 6:36 to 6:50 am, January 27, 2022. 12° F, feels like 9° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More of this morning photos here. (2) Rothko was described by Sawsan!

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Walking. Who but an imbecile?

January 22, 2022 by 43 Comments

5:00 a.m.  Glance at weather app. 10° F, feels like Hell frozen over. Wind gusts up to 30 mph.  Every ligament and nerve ending in the body is screaming, No! Stay under the covers.

But Duty calls. That magnetic pull. To what, for what, God only knows. But it pulls.

I’m sitting in the car at Cove Island Park, and, yes, the heater blows on my feet.

I twist in my ear buds and cue up Patricia Highsmith’s 1000 page diary on Audible. I’m 800 pages in and she grumbles: “Who but an imbecile would have chosen such a hard way?”

I step out.  A wind gust greets my start. Both eye balls gush water in defense. And they keep draining. Must be another one of these old age blessings, sh*t leaking oil from all orifices.

Bela called it. “It can be below zero, and I can go out in crocs if it’s dry…But if there’s moisture in the air, you can never warm up below 30F.” Yep, Bela. Here we stand.  Frigid wind (Chinook the Albertan’s call it, except wet) blowing off Long Island Sound, and it’s ripping right through my North Face gear. I’m coated with 3 layers from head to toe, except for the face which is exposed. Face-lift, no charge, God-Styling.

I walk.

I take the loop with the wind at my back. (I’m not a total imbecile.) [Read more…]

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Walking. With Agnes.

December 23, 2021 by 30 Comments

“You can walk. This is a gift. You can breathe and you can think and you can navigate a long room and sit with an old woman and ask questions about what life and art really mean. This is what they really mean: They are happening right now. They are happening to you and those in this world right now. And life and the arts and the people to whom they are happening are gifts to you, family for you. Embrace them. Listen to them. Navigate the long room to get to them and ask questions and listen and argue and create.

“There is so much beauty to see and to feel. Right now.

“Walk! Move your arms! Breathe!

“Get out and get to the life that is happening.”

– Agnes de Mille, from an Interview with James Grissom in 1989 titled: “Agnes de Mille: Get to the Life”. She was 85 at the time of the interview.

Notes:

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Monday Morning – Daybreak Walk (17 sec)

October 25, 2021 by 28 Comments

Thank you Beth.

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Walking. With Franzen.

October 9, 2021 by 34 Comments

6:45 a.m. – ish this morning. I’m walking Cove Island Beach. I reach the breakwall, and pause. It’s hard not to look out into this and not feel Small. The gentle breeze off the ocean. The lapping of the waves on the shoreline. The cloud formations. The warmth in early October. The thin strip of sunlight on the horizon.

Mark Oliver Everett: Sometimes that beauty is too much for me to handle. Do you know that feeling? When something is just too beautiful? When someone says something or writes something or plays something that moves you to the point of tears, maybe even changes you. 

And this beauty, the landscape in front, and the words from Audible being pumped into my head from Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, Crossroads, made me feel exactly that: Just too beautiful. [Read more…]

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Walking. Great Point & Hallowed Ground.

October 2, 2021 by 36 Comments

Friday, September 17th, the streak was broken.

I hadn’t known the numerical significance of it at the time — I was only regretting that the day would eventually come.  So, when I ran the math this morning, it was startling.

Start date May, 5, 2020. End date September 17, 2021. 500 days. 500 consecutive days of morning walks at Cove Island Park. Like in a Row. 

500 days of Anything is Something.

A joke, sad, and tiresome that it is, swirls around the house that I get anxiety attacks when I’m outside of a 50 mile radius of home. So, between the breaking of the 500 day chain, and the Road Trip outside of the comfort zone, we were swimming against unease.

Eric (Son) drove. Susan was the co-Pilot.  And I sat in the back, quiet, moping, thumbing through my iPad.

Fast forward. To our last morning in Nantucket. Steve & Andrew (Rachel’s future Father-in-Law and Fiancé) drove me out to Great Point in Nantucket. To get to Great Point, it was 15 minutes on the road followed by a 30 minute drive on the beach. [Read more…]

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Walking. With Someday & Soon.

August 27, 2021 by 32 Comments

479 consecutive days. Like in a Row.  Walking, at Cove Island Park.

~ 20 minutes before sunrise, and I’m walking the shoreline. It twitches. The surface stirs. Their bellies, silver flashes, mica flickering in twilight.

I look overhead. No gulls, no egrets, no herons. Enjoy your quiet time little people, while it lasts.

I keep walking. Multiple schools swirl ahead of me.

The Twilight Zone.

I walk.

Pages of James Tate Hill’s new memoir, Blind Man’s Bluff, turn. “It’s that meaning can rest in the smallest details, in every moment and gesture and line of dialogue.” 

The middle aged Chinese woman runner. Hardy girl that she is, running every morning straight through the winter months. She no longer runs on Weed Avenue, the main artery to the Park.  She ducks in and out of the side streets.  Fearing assault? Retribution for the Chinese Virus?

The Veteran Retiree. No sign of him in months. Visiting his grandchildren? Ill? Hospitalized?

Runner with Spandex and wired, Over-The-Ear headphones. He rolls on. Wired. With Over-the-Ear headphones. With Spandex. Luminescent disco blue. [Read more…]

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Walking. With Degenerate Guardian Angel.

August 19, 2021 by 40 Comments

5:10 a.m. Morning Walk @ Cove Island Park.  471 consecutive days. Like in a Row.

77° F.  Light rain, high winds.  This climate change morphs into heavy rain with moderate winds.

Cloud cover 323%. Humidity, 933%.

I’m ready to fire, camera lens fogs up from the humidity. Hood cover can’t protect the lens from rain riding on wind gusts. I decided not to haul the backpack this morning. No rag to wipe the lens. Irritated.

I walk.

It’s dark. Up ahead, near a park bench, illuminated by the street lamp, there’s an empty take-out food carton on the bench, plastic forks, plastic knives, and napkins strewn on the grass. Highly Irritated.

Mind drifts back to Tuesday.  Man fishing at the point. He casts out into the Cove, his lure breaks the stillness of the water.

“Any luck?”

“No, but that’s OK. It’s just so peaceful and beautiful standing here, I can’t imagine being anywhere else at this moment.”

Gray hair, mid 70’s. He smiles, his white, straight teeth light up the morning. He stands looking at me. Me at him. He’s a kind looking man, a gentle man.

He reels in his line, and starts to pack up.

“I need to clean up a bit.”

“Clean up?” I ask.

He’s bending down to pick up trash discarded among the rocks along the shoreline.  An empty Perrier glass bottle. A fast food styrofoam container. Discarded cigarette box.

“It’s really disrespectful,” he says.

I had another stream of expletives for it but this man, so peaceful looking, possibly a man of clergy, didn’t deserve that, so I just nodded in agreement.

Dale’s post comes to mind. And then a vision of a degenerate Guardian Angel follows behind that. And there I float. Fifty feet above the shoreline.  Guardian Angel Garbage Vigilante. I’m holding a two-foot long, piece of rebar. I hover along with the wind currents, looking down, seeking an offender.  It doesn’t take long to find a defacator. I tap him (it’s always a him) on the shoulder, pointing back to his plastic cup. He looks up at me, and gives me the finger. I tap him on the shoulder again, asking “please”. He sniffs and keeps walking. I cock the rebar back (because I always carry rebar), it whistles through the air and crashes down across his left knuckles. He falls, writhing in the sand, reaching for his plastic cup.

“I did say please.”

Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 6:31 am, August 17, 2021. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

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Walking. With Billy Summers. (2)

August 14, 2021 by 41 Comments

77° F.  5:05 a.m. Morning Walk @ Cove Island Park.  466 consecutive days. Like in a Row.

Another sh*t night of no-to-restless sleep. Another, like in a row. I’m tired. I look up ‘irascible’ when I get home, because that’s a word that Lori would use. I am Irascible. I-R-A-S-C-I-B-L-E. Oxford defines it as quick-tempered. Yes, with a capital “I”.

I pull into the parking lot. ‘My’ parking spot is taken. I park in the same spot each morning. There has to be 300 open spots, and someone had to choose mine. ‘Mine.’

I get out of the car, grab my camera gear from the back seat, and walk. It’s twilight, aka near dark. I fail to see the curb next to the car.  My right toe slams into the concrete curb. I somehow manage not to take a header. F*cking curb. What is that doing here!*!$ The rest of the morning, my right toe tingles.

I note that there’s an unusually large number of cars at daybreak. And a large number of middle aged women mingling in front of the gate. [Don’t start slinging unfriendly fire at me Followers —  I said ‘large number’, not ‘Large.’]  They are blocking the first entrance to the park, requiring me to walk 50 feet down the line to the second entry.  I mean really? Do you all need to congregate in front of the gate chitter-chattering at 5:10 a.m. What could there possibly be so important to talk about. 

My rhythm is disrupted. I have a routine here, people. 466 days of it. And here you come with your, what, yoga group? Meditation sutras?  Keep clear.

Air is thick, heavy. I need to wear long pants and a long sweat shirt as armor from the gnats and mosquitos. It’s 5:25 a.m, it’s hot and I haven’t even gotten started. Leather straps from the backpack bite into my shoulder.  Camera straps pinch my neck. And that swish swish of the backpack pulls on the straps which dig and then cut skin. Latin: Irascibillis.

The scene reminds me of a line in Stephen King’s new book which is being pumped by Audible into my airpods: Billy Summers: “When things go wrong, they don’t waste time.” [Read more…]

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Walking. With Elsa.

July 9, 2021 by 25 Comments

4:00 a.m. I flip open phone. Check Dark Sky app. 72° F. Tropical Storm Elsa. Heavy Rain. Flood Warnings.

Right. How bad can it possibly be? Nothing this Canadian with years @ Northern Michigan hasn’t seen. Please. Yet another over reaction, media click bait.

Cove Island Park walk. 430 consecutive mornings. Like in a row.

Rain jacket. Pants. Socks. Shoes. There was a time, in July, when you’d walk out, t-shirt, shorts, sock-less, maybe a baseball cap — and absorb whatever would hit you. Today, not so much.  Hemingway: “No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” He nailed it.

I lug the backpack to the car. The camera. Fanny pack, with keys, smartphone, earbuds.

I drive.

Radio News recaps yesterday’s headlines:

  • Governor Cuomo Declares First-In-The-Nation Gun Violence Disaster Emergency as Part of Comprehensive Strategy to Build a Safer New York, Fifty-one people were shot across the state over July 4 weekend.
  • Five undervaccinated clusters put the entire United States at risk.
  • The armed group who assassinated Haiti’s President, Jovenel Moise, were “professional killers” consisting of more than two dozen people, including two American citizens and retired members of the Colombian military.

OMG. Off with the radio.

The newspaper delivery man flips the morning paper on the driveway. It skids in the rain.

Stamford Sanitation. His orange florescent bib reflects my headlights. My back twinges watching him empty the can. God Bless you Man.

And not another soul dares to join me in this downpour. The question is why YOU are out here.

I jump out of the car to take a few shots on Weed Avenue, on the way to the park. The rain jacket can’t keep it out. My shoes sink in puddles. Socks are sopping wet. Long-sleeved shirt and t-shirt are wet to the skin. I get back to the car to find I left the door open, rain puddles on seat. Oh, what a beautiful day, you Idiot!

I drive.

I turn the corner to pull into Cove Island Park.

After 430 consecutive mornings, like in a row, you notice what’s out of place.

Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things doesn’t belong. Can you tell which of these things is not like the others before I finish this song?”

[Read more…]

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Walking. The Day After.

June 11, 2021 by 40 Comments

4:14 a.m. Dark Sky app: 60° F.

Out the door.  Morning walk @ Daybreak @ Cove Island Park. 402 consecutive days. Like in a row.

Man Fishing. GIANT man. Long, LONG fishing pole. Ex defensive lineman type. He lumbers towards his bike, dwarfing his two wheeler. Eyes closed, it’s his third attempt to swing his leg up and over, and he’s successful. He pauses, composing himself, letting the pain subside.

Man. Senior citizen. Walking a senior dog on a long leash. Both laboring to advance. That’s me in 20 years. Without a Dog. Sigh.

Woman. Cargo shorts. Long dark hair. Neatly kept. Shoes off. Sitting cross-legged on rocks. Hands in her lap. Meditating.

Egret, snow, snowy white, lands a few feet away.

Flock of geese quietly pass overhead.

The shimmer of pink reflects on the stones and water. Nice. I snap a shot. That shot up top.

And all of This, somehow, isn’t enough today.

After the Ring of Fire yesterday, that Big Show, this was too quiet, too normal, too SAME. [Read more…]

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Walking @ Daybreak. 365 days, in 7 1/2 minutes.

May 31, 2021 by 70 Comments

I took up photography as a hobby on May 5, 2020 as a reason to get out of the house during COVID.  I was first inspired by a Canada Goose nesting along the roadside, and waiting for her younguns to hatch each time I passed in the mornings.

The morning routine started with short runs, with an iPhone in hand.

That migrated to long walks with a Canon Powershot in a fanny pack.

And then the runs, and the walks gave way to a car ride to the Park with a backpack filled with my gear.

This montage includes one photo at daybreak (or close to it) each morning.

365 consecutive mornings, like in a row.

16 years we’ve lived in this house, in this neighborhood, in this area, and I had no idea that such beauty was just outside my door.

So, here’s my show. 7 1/2 minutes of a photo a day for a year.

And here’s to all of you, cheering me on every morning.

Enjoy!

 

 

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Walking. With Truckers, Parakeets & Puppies.

May 15, 2021 by 40 Comments

375 consecutive days. Like in a Row. Cove Island Morning Walk.  The commitment to stop this obsession on the 366th day, came and went. Rachel Cusk: ‘…this balking of my will.’ This pull of something Larger.

10:00 a.m. yesterday. Cablevision contractor (full mask the entire time because it’s the right thing to do) takes his wire cutters, and with a quick turn of his wrist, strips the white pvc wrapper from the copper wire. I couldn’t do that without slashing my index finger. Wish I could do Something with these hands. Need to watch Dick Proenneke’s Youtube documentary on building a log cabin in the Alaskan Wilderness. That’s right. Get off-grid and build something. 

4:35 a.m.  Newspaper ‘Man’ (not Boy, not on a 2-wheeler but an early model Nissan) flicks his wrist and the NY Times  sails in slow motion, its blue wrapper flapping in the air, and hits the driveway with a thud. I’d like to do this, just one morning…Fling papers on driveways, watch them skid on dewy front yards, or slow the car to wind it way back and slam it against the garage door…

4:45 a.m. I turn onto the I-95 entrance ramp. Truckers. So many Trucks.  So many red tail lights.  Not one time in the last 60-75 days, as I enter the merging lane, have these monster trucks not moved into the center lane to let me enter. Not.One.Time. Driving all night and still have the decency and courtesy of swinging their big rigs into the center lane to let me in. Not one Time. That’s Professional. 

I’m across from this giant tandem semi, which wobbles over into my lane and then straightens out. Must have reached over to give his puppy a snack.  Wheels. Life on the Road. “It can get lonely on the road…60% of truckers are pet owners, 40% of them taking their pets on the road with them…Sarah Giles, 27, drives for All Freight Carriers and carries a pair of dogs — and…a green-cheeked conure parakeet. ‘They’re about a foot long, as smart as a 4-year-old and very affectionate,’ she said. ‘Bonnie wants to be on me all the time, insists on everything her way, and doesn’t like strangers near the truck.’”

Sarah has a pair (!) of dogs and parakeet!  I look ahead. Of the 10 truckers in front of me, 4 have buddies riding along.  My passenger seat is dark, empty, and Sad. No friends. That’s Sad.

5:39 a.m. I make my way up to the point at Cove Island Park.

Walking by myself.

No puppy.

But damn, what a view…

Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 5:24 to 5:39 am, May 15, 2021. 46° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.

 

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Walking. Not. And Ranting.

March 27, 2021 by 71 Comments

Where does one start?

Let’s start with 327 consecutive days. Like in a row. Formerly described as the morning walk @ daybreak to Cove Island Park.

It’s time to inject some integrity into this getting-long-in-the-tooth story. This morning walk has degenerated into a morning drive to the Park. There I am this morning, sitting in the car in front of the gate at the park, heater blowing, warming my feet — I can’t, I just can’t open the door and get out. So, rather than getting out, I leave and drive to the next site on DK’s Marvelous Adventure in search of the sunrise from a location where I can roll down the window and not get my sorry a** out of the car. Wow, DK. You’re so awesome.

Or we can commiserate over the free fall in weight gain, or better stated, the pile up of 8 lbs in 30 days. Root cause? If one would take inventory of the snacking between calls and meetings, you would say: “It’s just not possible.” And I’m here to tell you, if you put your mind to it, an addict can accomplish anything.

We’ve pivoted to Welch’s Mixed Fruit Snacks. The Honeycrisp apples sit on the wicker tray on the island in the kitchen. The plump, juicy, seedless red grapes rest in the bowl in the fridge. Next to the grapes, fresh cut cantaloupe in the tupperware dish. And the horse with its blinders can’t see any of it. With the heartbeat elevated, a few feet away from The Fix, a giant Costco size box of Fruit Snacks. I grab two handfuls and run back to my office to jump on another call. My hands trembling, saliva building up in anticipation… I rip open the package and drain its contents. Pause for a second. And then bite down to let the saliva-sugar-corn syrup puree coat my tongue, throat and then slide down to the tummy. Oh, the few seconds of relief…with the sugar fix in, the momentary silence… all intoxicating. I get after another package. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. You see where this is going.

Or we can chat about yesterday’s bi-annual physical with my G.P.

[Read more…]

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Walking. With Breath-Cloud.

December 19, 2020 by 82 Comments

6:00 am.

I’m layered up. From bottom and working up: Wool socks. (2 pair). Long johns. Sweat pants. Snow pants. T-shirt. Long sleeved turtle neck. North Face hoodie. North Face jacket. Tuk, pulled down firmly over the ears. Fur-lined Sorel Boots. Gloves.

And the gear. Air pods. iPhone. Car Keys. Camera bag. Camera(s). Len(s). Memory card. Extra battery. Monopod. Wallet. And a Sling to hold it all.

This ensemble, embarrassing really, for a Canadian, who went to school in Northern Michigan. Man-up has an entirely new convention at middle-age — this not being a trek to the top of the Himalayas.

18° F this morning, wind gusts up to 20 mph. Feels like? 8° F.  Pretty Damn Cold.

I step out of the car at Cove Island Park, and a wind gust delivers its wake-up call. Eyes water. 228 consecutive days on this morning walk. But this one feels like a test. Body doesn’t want any part of this…

“Hey Siri. What time does the sun rise today?” Siri (perky): “Good Morning David. The Sun will rise at 7:14 am today.” She remembered my name! (Blush)

45 minutes until Sunrise. 45 minutes. Wow.

I walk.

Not a single soul out. I tromp out with my snow boots on the uncleared path, taking firm, deliberate, heavy steps, careful not to hit black ice.

Triple layers. All the gear. Anxiety over taking a tumble head first, and the ever-present risk of camera flying into a snow bank. God, I’m tired, and I couldn’t have walked 1/2 mile. [Read more…]

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Walking. With MJF.

November 21, 2020 by 69 Comments

Monday morning, 5 a.m. The night before, wind gusts up to 60 mph, heavy rain, and a tornado set down a few miles away. Trees down. Thousands without power in Fairfield County. The Kanigan house?  Silent. The lights burn, the furnace hums, Susan and Eric sleep. All is well.

I walk.

Cove Island Park.  There’s no evidence of havoc on the beach. It is swept clean. No drift wood. No trash. No humans. The sand is firm underfoot. I leave faint shoe marks. I don’t look back.

I never look back. 

It’s likely why the title of his book, No Time Like the Future, caught my attention. Michael J. Fox‘s new memoir, is pumping through my earbuds.

29 years old: Parkinson’s.

58 years old: Spinal cord surgery (unrelated to Parkinson’s) followed by long term rehab.

“I got grim,” he said in an interview in 2019. No shit.

I’m Canadian, like MJF, without the famous part.  He was born 5 months earlier, and yet handed a deck of cards that I’m not sure I could ever play.

He’s written 3 other memoirs titled “Lucky Man“, “Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist” and “A Funny Thing Happens on the Way to the Future.” You get the picture. It’s almost as if he was built to take the blows.

He’s narrating this new book.

Shame, that’s what I feel, as I have to slow down the narration speed on Audible to catch each word. Most with Parkinson’s speak slowly, but not MJF. He speaks rapidly, with certain words trailing off at the end of certain sentences. Actor. Married, 30 years. Father. Prolific fundraiser for Parkinson’s. Writer. Narrator of his own books. Super Man.

I walk, and I listen. [Read more…]

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I’m only now starting to fully understand is that this is an inside job. It only works if I believe.

November 20, 2020 by 36 Comments

But what I’m only now starting to fully understand is that this is an inside job. It only works if I believe. I’ve always been confident, positive, doggedly determined; but doubt is beginning to mitigate my conviction. Who am I to think I can accomplish this, when so many have struggled with similar setbacks; some with Parkinson’s, some with the aftermath of spinal surgery? I may be the only one who has taken on this particular two-headed beast…

I have to learn to walk again; to reclaim my mobility, remaster my motion. I consider this fundamental to my therapy —  for me, it all starts and ends with walking. And I understand that it’s more complicated than that. So many tiny disciplines have to be observed, and neglected muscles and ligaments need to be restored. I’m exhausted by the effort I’ve already put in at Johns Hopkins, and daunted by how much work I still have to do. It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks.

Back in the days of carefree ambling, I would have considered the topic of walking to be rather pedestrian. Now the acts of stepping, strolling, hiking, and perambulating have become an obsession. I watch Esmé gliding through the kitchen, grabbing an apple while opening the fridge door for a coconut water, closing it with a quick shift of her hip and pirouetting out the swinging door at the other end of the room. Down in the lobby, my neighbor and her daughter are quickstepping to catch a taxi. I spy on a man walking with a slight limp, which he counterbalances with a bag of groceries. I secretly watch the way they all move. Easy, breezy, catlike, or with a limp, every one of them is far better at it than me. It may be that the most difficult, miraculous thing we do, physically, is to walk…

It’s tough. With PD and the aftermath of the surgery, something as simple as remaining upright is often sabotaged by a rogue army of misfiring neurons. I try to stay organized. I have memorized a litany of admonitions, not unlike my golfer’s list of swing thoughts: Keep my head centered over my hips; hips over my knees; no hyperextending; stay in line with my feet; eyes forward; shoulders back; chest out; lead with the pelvis. All of this kinetic vigilance can dissolve in a nanosecond of panic, or come apart with some other distraction. A tiny nervous jolt or spasm, and like a house of cards in a sudden gust of wind, the only messages that make it through the debris are: Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall …

—  Michael J. Fox, No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality (Flatiron Books, November 17, 2020)

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