This morning, my body is over-trained. I can feel it. It's not bad, but I can feel it. The problem is, I just don't have time for it. The world is calling for me. I can hear it, but my body is on a clock. At fifty-nine years old, I know the usable life of my body is not infinite, so I have to push, but I also have to be careful.
When I was twenty and felt like this, I'd work harder, then get drunk at Scrooges so I would sleep well and forget about whatever was making me work so hard. My relationship with my body is and always was, I would say, strained. In truth, it's an unhappy but long-lived marriage.
There is infinitely more written about the relationship between women and their bodies than there is about men and theirs. Part of that might be that we've hung this millstone around their neck called "physical beauty," a burden rarely shared by men. If you look at what's going on in Persia today, the idea of feminine beauty is probably the creation of men wanting to contain and limit women. I'm probably as guilty as any of them, but I do try to at least admit it.
Physical beauty is not something I ever really considered myself a part of. Overweight with thinning hair and a smile that looked like I was going to kill someone or just had, I always figured the best I could do was to make a useful body, so I learned to move heavy things and climb things I shouldn't.
Lucy Millsaps once assigned us to draw four self-portraits. Which I did. In private. Always in private. I turned them in, and Lucy said, "the drawings are very good, but you don't look like that. The likeness is very good, but you've emphasized all the wrong features. You're better looking than that. Is there something wrong?" I love Lucy. I miss her. For someone so small, she could see very far.
The over-training isn't bad. It's just there. I think if I get proper sleep and get good nutrients, I should be fine. While I have to train, and I enjoy it, all I really want to do is write. Just typing it makes the water come to my truth eye.
I think I'm going to treat myself and get a nice leather bag for my laptop. I think I'm going to be the kind of asshole who writes in cafes. For forty-five years, I wrote in secret, both the process and the result. Lately, I've been letting people see what I write, which has gone surprisingly well. Maybe letting them see the process won't be so bad. Hearing the sounds and voices of people going about their business helps me concentrate. I know that sounds crazy, but it works. Maybe I go into some sort of sensory overload, and my body shuts down that input channel and lets me focus, where less input would otherwise interfere with my thinking.
When I was married, I would wait till my wife went to sleep, then take a laptop to Waffle House to write. I told my wife I was going to smoke, which she hated, so she never questioned it. You could smoke in Wafflehouse then, and nearly everyone did, including the guy on the griddle. The people at Wafflehouse are usually too busy to notice if you're writing, or sleeping, or overdosing, or stabbing your neighbor, so my activities could be completely anonymous there.
I loved my wife more than anything, but she had no interest in my writing, or my painting, or my sculpting, drawing, or theater. I'm pretty sure she thought she was getting my dad. It's not her fault; I do a pretty good impression of him and almost always do. Because I would have done anything for her, then or now, when she said she wanted to marry, I did, and that was that. Knowing that she couldn't really see me wasn't an issue because I never let anyone see me. My wife is still one of my favorite people in the world. What happened between us was entirely my fault. I should have been more honest and open.
Her dad, that was a different story. Besides Brent Lefavor, nobody who didn't share genetic material with me ever taught me as much as Cecil Jenkins or see me as clearly. We continued to talk after the divorce. I'm sure he never really separated from anyone. I miss him. I wish I could talk to him now.
I don't know where this writing thing is going. I'd love to publish, but if it never happens, I'm satisfied just knowing that even one person read my stuff. For many years, I didn't allow that many. Actually working while other people go about their lives around me has a really satisfying ring about it. If you see me typing in a coffee shop or a pizza joint, check on Facebook in a couple of days, and you'll most likely see whatever I was working on. My body will heal itself, and the over-training will go away. I just have to stop being such an asshole to my limbs, and it'll work out.
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