Do you know the right way to take a seat in a car?  Yes, there is a right way, according to health experts, a way that’s recommended to avoid incurring painful or disabling back injuries.  You open the door, back your behind down by gently pivoting to 180 degrees away from the door, and then back down into the seat with both feet still on the ground.  Then, as you pivot your torso 90 degrees to face the front of the vehicle, you gently lift one foot from the ground and place it on the floorboard, and then do the same with the other.  You know, you’ve seen ‘old people’ do this and you probably thought that they were ‘stiff’—not supple enough to just plop into the car.

Well, I’ve no excuse.  I know the right way, but never execute it.  I’m hellbent.  I’m devil-may-car(e).  And I always enter my vehicle like an ace fighter pilot on a mission to save the world: Leaping, twisting, flagellating, cavorting in every which way—including loose.  So should it be any mystery that this Monday currently past, I launched myself like a Sputnik hurling a monkey into space, plopped like a kick-drop into my seat, took one torque-turn too many to the right and subluxated my lumbar (lower back).  Yiaaaahhh!   At least I wasn’t making love at the time, or how would I explain that?  “Sorry baby, but even the thought of your softness is too resistantly painful for me to continue beyond this moment.” ?

As a result of my Elvis-imitation gyrations, I missed out on some work Monday, worked but with great pain on Tuesday, missed out again on Wednesday, and today, Thursday, still in excruciating pain, I’ve taken a half day off to….to….  rest?  No!  Got a life—Fucking run!  It’s a beautiful day here in N. Ohio: cloudless, 80 degrees, low humidity, and a gentle breeze.   So how could I resist?  What?   The allure, the seduction, and the ultimate pain in running with a subluxated disk ?!  But let me tell you this: never underestimate a cemetery blogger-runner.  We may seem to the outer world like lost angels without wings, or Neanderthals with mindless strength bent only on macho things.  But there’s a curious method to our method, and an intrepid  madness to our madness, and forever in a stranglehold shall they grip each other. 

So, in the cemetery, I run laps that are approximately 1.4 miles.  (Okay, they are exactly 1.4 miles, but you really don’t have a need-to-know that!) 

My first lap today would have failed to even qualify in a kindergartener’s race to a snack bar at recess.  I was waiting for someone to say: “I mean, we know you’re dying Jack, but could you at least pick up the pace?” 

My second lap today was a matter of:  “Buddha believed that life is delusion (samsara) and pain—and you are his poster child.”. 

Third lap, hang on tight.  Faster—it’s alright. 

Fourth lap, muscular functional templates reassert.  Sublaxations are autonomously targeted for correction.  All stiffness is transformed into tingling.  I feel high!

Fifth lap, normal running resumes, I start to press myself competitively again and arrive at my seven mile destination with a sense of gain and no pain.

Hippocrates said it:  “Doctor, heal thyself.”

All I have to say is that Hippocrates probably would have made one helluva cemetery blogger-runner.

Post-blog:  Still here in Dreamland, just now, just this very now, I got an urgent call from my daughter informing me that her grandpa passed away (euphemism for continuing on into the Golden Eternity ) within the hour.  So I will join her shortly.  But  first, I will sit here on the cemetery hill, have a beer, say a prayer. 

Synchronicity underlies all that love and honor overlies.

have I gone too far?
the ancient taoists warned: the farther you go , the less you know.
have I spent too much energy shaking my branches when I should have been sinking my roots?
am I with the wind gone to the farthest corner, the only lonely corner,
the one-you-cannot-find-because-I’ve-just-invented-it-that’s-how-far-I’ve-gone gone corner?
or have I been merely revving my motorcycle at the starting line with the actual race soon about to start? and the corner that will soon test me is the one where I could wipe out?
or like a satellite getting ready to get slung around the corner of the sun for ultrathrust into endless amazing space…am I sailing smoothly towards the cosmos like a man’s hand upon a pretty girl’s petticoat lace?
or haven’t I gone far enough?