“Mein fuhrer! I can walk!”
Ok, so perhaps this particular line from Peter Sellers’ eponymous role in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is irrelevant in this instance, but I just wanted to say it because it’s a funny scene and it makes me happy. No further explanation required, but now I’m in the mood to watch it, so maybe I’ll come back and edit this with a slightly more apt tie-in later…
Segue… looking for a segue… Got it! In addition to walking, I can also run (no, your mom is a lame-ass segue!), which is what I was doing yesterday at a nearby football field. Barefoot sprints, to be precise. We’ve had a very reluctant Spring here in Ohio, and I have a predilection to cower in my fallout shelter, subsisting on rat carcasses when it snows in April (my nonsensical, discursive way of saying I haven’t had much opportunity to walk barefoot as nature intended this year), but yesterday was the closest thing to a perfect day I’ve experienced in recent memory, so I decided to enjoy the cloud-free skies while getting in a short, intense workout.
After a leisurely jaunt through the woods (this time without that contemptible weight vest of mine), I hopped a couple chainlink fences to the local track. As I kicked off my shoes and began my first 100 yard sprint across the football field, my unshod feet felt right at home as they alternatively struck cool grass, and warm, soft, bare earth. That’s the most appropriate way I can describe the sensation–at home.
After sprint #10 (ok, so maybe 7-10 were more like runs or jogs… like you’re in perfect shape? Get the hell outta here…) I slowly walked back to the opposite goal post where my shoes and shirt lay, and as my ragged lungs recovered, I lay down next to them, clad only in a hat (to keep my slightly toasted dome from getting any more toasted) and shorts (you know, because I want to expose as much of my dermis to the cool grass and warm photons as I can without publicly exposing myself, if you follow…)
Artist’s rendering (google search for “grass”) of me were I made of grass (I’m on the left).
Artist’s rendering of me with hair and tits (on the left again).
It’s been said said a thousand times in as many ways, but it absolutely bears repeating, as our amnesiac species seems prone to forgetting it at times, especially after a long winter; there is something primally calming, gratifying, and essential about connecting with our Terra Mater (Mother Earth).
As I lay in the grass relishing every ray of beautiful sunlight, time escaping (because I stopped wearing my watch, and intentionally left my phone at home), my brain reminded me of some of the benefits my body was receiving in that moment, i.e. my flesh connecting with the earth was providing some of the most potent antioxidant effects known to man through grounding or earthing, and my skin was synthesizing the optimal form of vitamin D through the sunlight, and my immune system and microbiome were being bolstered through exposure to bacteria in the soil… while my brain knew these things, my mind couldn’t have cared less; instead, my mind seemed transfixed and seduced by the natural beauty of the grass as I gently caressed and plucked its blades… almost overwhelmed as Mother Nature gently reminded me* of all the beauty and brilliance that will ever be juxtaposed with the onus of hate, death, and destruction we plague ourselves and each other with…
…but, there’s something about laying alone in a field on a sunny day that makes all that “real life shit” melt away… if only in that evanescent moment…
*”…in the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand…”
Now, if you would please cross your fingers for me while I search Netflix for Dr. Strangelove, because I really don’t want to break out that damn DVD bin…
P.S.- Join me in July for Damn it… I’m so friggin’ tired of this sun… Go away… I swear I’m stabbin’ the next chipper asshole who asks me “hot enough for ya’?!”
Prima Vita 