Day 324, February 2, 2021

Snow Leopard

Tonight's soundtrack: Bernstein conducting Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Glen Gould and more (but too much talking)... And Brahms piano concertos nos. 1 and 2 played by Krystian Zimerman with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker

I started my day by suiting up and snowblowing the driveway. The snow was deeper than expected and clearing the driveway, cutting a path to the propane tanks and chicken coop, and digging out the chickens was a whole lot of activity before I'd even had my cup of coffee. For the rest of the day I could feel it in my knees and back... not a full on crisis, but just a twinge of a tweak, enough to be a little careful about standing up and stretching in the later half of the day.

Pastoral snow day.

At lunch, I was reading about snow leopards and how they can leap 50' spans. Tigers can leap 33' in comparison. First, that is a startling distance to imagine a tiger leaping at someone, because, of course, I imagine myself the tourist visiting tiger country some day... or maybe even snow leopard country, though the portrayal of this particular village overrun by snow leopard tourists seemed disenchanting. 

The article followed one older leopard that chased an ibex off a cliff into a river, where they both survived, until the leopard drowned the ibex in the freezing waters. Not long after, the old leopard did the same stunt, but perished in the fall.

Thinking about death defying snow leopards made me think of how freely I used to throw my body around. As children we can tumble and fall with almost no consequence. Lost teeth grow back, fractured bones heal, and skinned knees grow scabs that fall off. I'm not sure when the idea of bodily harm seemed to become more of a real concern. In high school, years of football and wrestling took a toll on my knees, but I continued on unhindered besides a slightly altered gait. In these contact sports, one of my strengths was a certain fearlessness (or stupidity) that allowed me to throw my body into situations where I did not fear the consequence. It was the brilliant and short-lived invincibility of youth.

There was a short (I now realize) window of time when I could imagine what I wanted my body to do, and with a little bit of trial and error, I could accomplish something similar. I could visualize a great leap off a cliff while sinking my teeth into the throat of an ibex, and more likely than not, I could do it.

A few years ago, one of the bands I'm in, The Warblers, played a few shows supporting the Turners Falls Skate Park and we had the honor of playing at the park opening. I stood at the edge of the concrete bowl and watched as people dropped in on skateboards and scooters. It was magical how effortlessly they rode the undulations and took to the air. Thinking about my childhood, and temporarily blocking out the memory of fracturing my arm on a skateboard, I imagined dropping into the bowl. I even walked to the nearby skate shop across from the park and priced out a board. I was telling this to our drummer and he mentioned that he had a friend who did the same thing, and on his first drop into the bowl, he fell and broke his hip! Yikes, that gave me pause. 

Now, when I fall, unless I am on a busy street, I tend to stay still and take stock, make sure I am whole and unbroken before getting up. I have been lucky in recent years. My falls on ice and bicycle accidents have been mostly without consequence. Perhaps, even more so than obstacles like ice or potholes, the greater danger is of an error in judgement, how, I used to be able to imagine myself able to do a thing and I could do it. I could lift a heavy object, tackle a 265 pound human being, or ride a cafeteria tray down a ski mountain at night. The danger is that, like the snow leopard, I might think that just because I once leapt off a cliff with an ibex in my teeth, that I could it again. I imagine, that must have been quite the sensation, the falling hundreds of feet, and surviving, eating the ibex as it froze in the river. How close living is to dying. 

These same knees, that once carried me across football fields and slid across wrestling mats now seem to sense drops in barometric pressure and prevent me from downhill skiing, and sometimes slow my hiking, particularly in steep declines. I do have moments of exuberance where I exhibit glimpses of my former self, most recently while comically running in snowshoes to test out the terrain. Or, perhaps you can also count manhandling a snowblower around the driveway and yard without the benefit of breakfast as another version of that. 

It is less the fear of injury that gives me pause, than it is the desire to be able to do things that bring me pleasure. I am more cautious around power tools and chainsaws because I worry an injury would prevent me from playing music. I wear ear plugs when I turn on the blender making my smoothies, because I want to preserve my hearing. The other day I read a brief article about a computer algorithm that was being used to identify people who were susceptible to dementia by observing changes in their writing, specifically their vocabulary, sentence structure, and errors in punctuation and capitalization. That feels like a frightening thing to consider. 

I suppose we all grow and change and evolve. I no longer wish to tackle other human beings or perform roundhouse kicks that land at head height. Nor do I wish to drive a 100 mph in an automobile or drop into a concrete bowl on a skateboard. In another dozen years I may be more content to not do other things. But for now, it is like how I have resigned myself to the pandemic. There are many things I wish to do, and so for now, I continue to mask up (double mask in my last outing) and stay in my bubble mostly isolated until we can once again gather safely. I look forward to when we can meet again, throw marvelous pot luck suppers, play music, read poetry, and embrace one another.

Take care and stay safe,

Leo

The aerodynamic shapes of snowbound cars.

From Our Friends:

From the UMass Office of Equity and Inclusion:

• On March 18, in partnership with the Isenberg School of Management, we will be presenting the BIAS documentary and discussion with filmmaker Robin Hauser. This documentary follows Hauser on a journey to uncover her hidden biases and explore how unconscious bias defines relationships, workplaces, our justice system and technology.
  
• On March 25, we welcome Dr. Anthony Jack, assistant professor of education at Harvard University, for a free, Five College virtual talk and Q & A on “The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students.” We encourage you to learn more about Dr. Jack and the upcoming event.