Finding Peace in the Paradox
I have a favorite tent that I bought about twenty years ago. On its very first outing, at a campground in western Colorado, the prevailing wind was so powerful that one of the poles bent under the pressure as the tent held steady, staked solidly, as it was, to the earth. After that, the tent stood a bit crooked but it was still perfectly functional so my three children and I used that crooked tent all through our car camping years. I love this tent for how perfectly it suited us and for all the memories we share. When I remarried, it became the go-to tent for my husband and I as well as a useful spare bedroom for my children when they are visiting. And it’s even better now that we only try to fit two people at a time in it. Definitely a keeper!
So when the bent pole that made the tent crooked finally broke and the tent no longer stood, I took the chance that the manufacturer would replace the pole and gave them a call. I learned that I could have a new pole built so I mailed in the broken pole to be repaired and wondered why I hadn’t done this years before. I received the new pole a while later and took the tent on my next car camping adventure. On this trip I had the tent pitched in my friend’s yard. I slept in it the first night and felt happy that I had given it a new life by replacing the broken pole. The second night though, I came back from our evening’s adventure to discover that the tent had blown across the yard. I could see it dimly in the distance, pressed up against the fence, which I prayed was not barbed wire. Fuck! Why didn’t I stake it down when I moved it earlier in the day? We went out to rescue it and pulled it across the yard to a new flat place where I tried to straighten it out in the dark. Something was wonky but overall it seemed okay so I staked it down and climbed in for the night. The next day I could see that it had new bends in all three poles but nothing that prevented it from being used. However, in my darkened haste to find out the damage the night before, I had created the first tear in its fabric. Again, fixable, but more worn, more fragile.
As I reflect on the life of this tent, it’s early crookedness but functionality, even perfection, and it’s immediate return to it’s usual crooked self upon repair, I think about my body and my own life. It makes me wonder what needs to be fixed and what I’m meant to live with. It’s easy to get hyper-focused on my body, especially when I’m in pain or fearful that something is wrong or even knowing that something really is wrong - anything from life-threatening to just uncomfortable can start anyone on a quest to fix the problem. But then I think about old grandmothers, who are a little bent, a little plump, or a little saggy, and all their grandchildren notice is how soft their skin is when they are snuggled up next to them.
When I was younger, I took a lot for granted about my body. I appreciated some things and enjoyed other things and I assumed I would get old someday. But I also assumed I would always be “me” - thin, capable, intelligent, kind, and strong enough to do anything I ever asked my body to do. Like a mother who can lift a car off her trapped child. And what about sexy? I came of age during the era of boxy t-shirts in the 1990s and it wasn’t until I was in my early 40s that it occurred to me that whatever figure I had left was the best it would ever be so I might as well show it off. A few short years later, I’m peering down the lane at a future that I no longer take for granted. I scour the landscape for answers to help me heal things that might just be the result of ordinary aging as I look sideways at my lithe and nimble cats with a mixture of awe and envy.
There’s a lot of hype about anti-aging right now and I get it. I want that too! I want to feel good in my body. I want to be strong and capable. I want to keep doing hard things. I want to keep learning and living as I age. I want to be adaptable enough to travel to foreign places and adventurous enough to believe I can hike alone in the wilderness. I want to live long enough to feel my great grandchildren snuggled up against my soft skin. But wait. That gives me pause. My skin might be softer, more fragile. My body might be squishier, less toned. What are the parts of me that are like my tent, meant to be crooked from the start or becoming fragile after years of being used and enjoyed to the fullest?
Like so many things in life, I feel the truth in the paradox.
Even though I love my tent, I always thought it was wrong for it to be crooked. Like a mistake had occurred. I thought that again when I saw it blown up against the fence last weekend. But what if I’m wrong? What if that tent was always meant to be crooked? What force of nature is at play here that I don’t understand, that I may never understand? This form of mystery is where true balance sneaks into my mind, the opposite of my striving for health and wellness against the gravity of age. My brain and my ego tell me to pursue solutions. My heart says yes to life. But the mystery shows me that I’m not the boss of everything, even in my own body. If I was, I never would have gotten cancer and neither would all those other people who tried their best to live a good life. It’s another way of saying to let go, to just be without trying to fix.
Both things have their role in my life. The curiosity, the effort, and the stamina it takes to fix things, to keep pursuing solutions to the mysteries of my body and my health. But equally valuable and true is the letting go. The allowance of aging. Sometimes I’m down the rabbit hole, looking for the key to my metabolic dysfunction and sometimes I just feel proud of myself for choosing to ride a bike that day. Look at me go! I say to myself, as I fly down the hill with the birds singing and the wind in my hair. And it feels as if it’s both the first and the last time I ever did it.