Recovery

I went through surgery on Friday on my sinuses. While most folks seem to agree, it is a fairly routine surgery (my doctor has done 100 of them per year for the last 20+ years), it still requires general anasthesea and a few weeks of recovery.

So, I haven't left the house in three days. My weekend has consisted of moments of persistent discomfort combined with nice mellow vicotin highs and a general sense of boredom and restlessness (which seems to peak around 5 pm every day when the house gets its hottest). Around that time today, I got a five word e-mail from my brother that said, "You a NetFlix guy?? Get 180* South....."

So, I went to Netflix and found this movie, which proved to be the inspiring story of two generations of climbers and surfers and their work with Conservacion Patagonia in Chile/Argentina. The combination of the movie, the weather getting hot and it being a Monday with nothing to do but heal, I found myself in a place I haven't remembered being in since college. I would sit in the heat in New Orleans in either early or late summer and think about the places to where I wanted to travel. Usually it was the Collegiate and Elk mountains of Colorado, the Himalayas outside of Dharamsala, India, the Olympic National Park off the coast of Washington or the deserts of Western Australia.

In quiet contrast to the city, my heart would have this yearning for open space and the peace and fulfillment that comes with it. Camping. Hiking. Climbing. Being outdoors til your body is tired out and your spirit is full. And there is an openness about it that gets lost in any routine that involves an office, a regular commute, a car or city-dependent life. It is like the magic of the world doesn't fit as well into those tight spaces as it does into the open ones.

So, my recovery may be well underway from my sinus surgery (of which I will spare you the graphic and inspiring details that mostly consist of blood and snot), a different kind of possibility of recovery is emerging. This is the recovery from the routines and monotonies that for the most part make up our American way of life. Those that focus far more on the doing of life than the being, more on the future than the present, and more on controlling life than experiencing it. And with the recovery comes a return to the adventure that is perhaps somewhere closer to our spirit's true nature.