The mocking of the gods I did in my last post was met with the expected retribution from them the next day. Of course the gods is a synonym also for human stupidity. Either way you say it, I messed up.

Having completed a major task for the day by 1:30pm, I decided it was time for my walk, and I determined that it was to be another ten-miler. I was so moved by the reverie and accomplishment of walking ten beautiful exhausting miles that was eager for the experience again. But I took little notice of the fact that I had not eaten and it was in the nineties, not to mention mid-day. To further prove my stupidity and to open myself up to more divine mocking, I decided I needed to quicken my pace, so I began the long incline of nearly four miles by nearly running, and when my heart and lungs began to complain, I ignored them, making sure that I did not lose my pace by increasing it just a bit. By the time I reached the country club, I was in trouble, breathing heavily and my heart actually hurting. Only then did I slow down, and I put my hands on my hips and took stock of things. I was about to throw up, but there was nothing in my stomach to churn out, and we all know how good that feels. My legs were weak, and I had to keep moving, albeit very slowly, or I was afraid I would cramp up. I was sweating profusely and at least four miles from home no matter which direction I took. Nice going, Aristaeus. You’re a real genius. Divine laughter pealed in the sky.

I still had the last bit of Canyon Drive to do, including the final steep incline, but I was just stubborn enough not to go back home the way I came. In fact, I figured that I could still do my ten-miler; I just needed to get past this last hill and take it easy the rest of the way, the rest of the way being another six miles. More divine laughter echoing off the hills. With great pain in my aching heart and legs, I crest the hill at Sunset Drive, climb the little berm that overlooks the valley, and collapse on the dirt. I have no interest in the view; all my attention is on my failing body. I am in the best shape of my life, and Dr. Gutierrez, my physician, is amazed at my condition. She has no other men my age under her care who exercise and eat well and have such good numbers as I do. I feel and look great, if I do say so myself. But today I am going to die on Sunset Drive because I have mocked the gods. It is bloody hot, the middle of the day, and I haven’t eaten or had anything to drink all day. Furthermore, I have set a new record for the time it takes me to reach this point. And now I am going to die.

I plan my funeral. Cool University will want to do some sort of memorial for me, but I want to keep the buzzards away, so I think I have to get to Robby somehow and tell him what to do. He is to not allow the harpies anywhere near this event, but he must fly Fyodor, Vivien, and Monique here from various parts of the country, and he can use the money from my estate to do that. They can say whatever they want of course, but Monique has to read Whitman’s “So Long.” Fyodor will quote from Cast Away (“You never know what the tide will bring.”) or Unforgiven (“I thought I was dead once too, but I was just in Nebraska.”) or Titanic (“Meet me at the clock.”). Robby and Vivian will sing Tom Waits and U2 and whatever Vivian comes up with for the moment. Other students and faculty will say some things, and it will all be good. Then they shall have a party at my place (they all have keys) that will go down in Buffalo history, surpassing all the other parties I have had at my place for sheer happiness and despair.

But I don’t carry the iPhone on my walk, only my keys, so I have to live long enough to reach Robby so he can plan my funeral, by which time I probably won’t need a funeral, but I have to take it one step at a time. Such is the logic of a dying man cursed by the gods. I still consider doing the ten-miles when my heart, beating slower now but sore, tells me that I am getting my ass home. I finally listen and cut through Caroline Park to find a direct path home.

As I wind my way back, I join the chorus of the gods and curse myself for being so stupid. I am always doing these kinds of things: pushing myself too hard at work or play, almost running out of gas, jumping into things up to my neck when I could just as easily wade in to my ankles. Is this a product of an open-road life? How do you love something or embrace life without going all-in? It’s something I’m still trying to learn, and the only thing that scares me more than going all-in when I shouldn’t is not going all-in when I should. So until I figure it out, I guess I’ll keep taking it to the limit, one more time.

My wiser self turns right to go back onto the main road so that if I collapse, someone will see me. I’ll try to stay conscious long enough to call Robbie and plan my funeral, and I marvel at why this concerns me so much since I won’t be experiencing my own death or any funeral. A mile from home, I am feeling better. My heart is still sore, but my pace has quickened to a normal stroll instead of my death march, and I can imagine making it home and not dying. I collapse on the couch with a Gatorade and contemplate my near-death experience.

No more work today because I’m too sore and tired, so I decide to watch some DVDs. I’ve been watching The Wire from season one on, and I am amazed and impressed by it. It is positively Shakespearian in the confluence of the real and the beautiful, the mundane and the sacred. After a few episodes, my muscles begin to mock me like the gods, and I take a hot bath. Still not up to eating or moving much, I decide to watch a movie: Million Dollar Baby. Great movie, bad idea to watch it today. Clint Eastwood’s directing and Hilary Swank’s acting are just too good, and by the end of the film I am crying and cannot stop. Damn it. Why do I do this to myself? I get online and Robby learns that I am upset, so he sends me a Zach Galifinakis video that only depresses me more.

Then the turn.

Though I haven’t spoken to her for a year now, St. Mary of Atlanta, Esq. starts texting me. Does she know how much I need to hear from her right now? We speak of the recent music she sent me, especially the Avett Brothers, and she asks what song I am listening to. “I and Love and You” of course, I tell her. She responds, “I and Miss and You,” and now I’m crying for a whole other reason. There’s a knock at my door, and it’s my friend Donna, who says we are going to the Thai place for dinner. Her goofy, smiling face is just what I need to see right now.  St. Mary keeps texting me, then Anna calls. I haven’t really talked to Anna since she visited LA last August, and over drinks we had a bizarre and funny conversation about Paolo and Francesca in the Inferno. But she is on the phone now, and Donna laughs as I text and talk on the phone while also talking to her sitting on my couch. It’s like this wave of love that washes over me, baptizing my despair and lifting me up to life. All shall be most well. All is most well.

While I’m not a fan of conventional poetry, preferring blank or free verse to the standard rhythms and meters, I have always appreciated one element of the sonnet. The sonnet has a rhyme and meter scheme, but it also has this wonderful device at line nine called “the turn.” It’s where the mood and action shift, sometimes dramatically, as the speaker gains a realization and moves toward the close of the poem. After line nine may be an answer to a question or a resolution to a problem, or it may just be that things turn from one direction to another, from dim understanding to awakening, from death to life. So here is a sonnet from one John Donne, a wonderfully crazy Christian and warrior poet, to all my wonderful crazy friends who helped me make the turn, and to the gods with whom I will always do battle but with respect.

Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.