Between the Cold. That. Wouldn't. Leave, the upcoming family visit/birthday party planning, and teaching, I'm finding this weekly blog business to be more challenging than I imagined. I had somehow envisioned my being able to keep right up, and the practice would feel as good for my soul as the spring that's is lurking just under the surface. I've composed many entries in my head, but haven't found even a minute to manifest the words. Funny how things don't quite turn out as we'd hoped. And now that I have a moment - a stolen, brief moment - I'm not even going to write one of the entries that has been circling without landing in my mind.
I just had a phone call from the doctor's office, with news about all the bloodwork that it seems every physician insists upon doing at the first meeting with a new patient. Nevermind my insistence that my cholesterol is below average, or that despite 20+ years of vegetarianism I've only ever suffered pregnancy-induced anemia (vindicated again this time!). The nurse rattled off everything I already knew, but then she said something stunning and wholly unexpected: I am, apparently, extremely Vitamin D deficient - something I've never even really heard of in an adult. How I got this way is perplexing, since even in winter I do not sequester myself in the house, run several days a week outdoors and take the wee ones to park usually every weekend. How I fix being this way - and I will have to fix it, as the consequences aren't so appealing - is pretty straightforward: intensive supplements with retesting in a few months, and a directive to get outside more.
Now I find myself considering the metaphorical implications of this diagnosis. I've always known that I am happiest and feel most thoroughly alive, something I commented on in Kristin's recent post, A Cold, S(easonally) A(ffected) D(isordered) Place, when it is sunny and warm outside. My Self was most centered when I lived in Tucson, with its two seasons of Warm & Hot. People always tell me that I'd miss proper seasons, if I decided to settle in a place like that. And I tell them I most certainly would not. It's interesting to me now that my lifelong, intuitive desire for a place marked by endless summer has not been just an emotional one. More than just desire, it is also a real, physical need. My body craves the light for physiological sustenance just as much as my soul craves it for balance and inner happiness. And it's no longer a want, but a genuine need (a difference I wish I could make the three-year old realize...). It's a large realization, this. That my body simply cannot live without the light. Well, it can. But it shouldn't. And so oddly comforting, somehow. A justification - as if I ever needed one - for being out in the world as often as possible.
Epic Beautification 3: Hobbit House
5 days ago
wow. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI had not heard of a personal experience of someone being diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency, however I know it is actually a larger problem than we know, and I suspect more people suffer than we know. Muscle aches, skin conditions, gum disease, sleep disorders, psychological illness,,,,all connected to not receiving enough Vitamin D...and the list goes on
What is interesting is, we need the sun's light to trigger a reaction within us so we can absorb Vitamin D in the food's we eat....so it is not simply a dietary deficiency. We DO need sunlight.
What struck me most strongly is how you were sensing this within you.
you wrote, "My Self was most centered when I lived in Tucson, with its two seasons of Warm & Hot."
I believe in the innate wisdom of the body to sense what we need, and sometimes I feel we give our mind "too many props" so to speak. We listen so readily to external information and knowledge when we have such a profound ability to sense and feel within ourselves what we need as well. Some people call this intuition. I call it, an innate characteristic of being human that many have lost is this age of so much information.
I believe you got it absolutely right when you wrote:
"It's a large realization, this. That my body simply cannot live without the light."
You added then, "Well, it can. But it shouldn't"
I will say that it can not. Not in a way where we feel really connected and fully alive.
As another comment, I LOVED how you wrote in the beginning,
"and the practice would feel as good for my soul as the spring that's is lurking just under the surface."
I know that feeling. I connected with that. Spring lurking. I get so impatient during this time. I wonder if that's how plants feel before they burst open? : ) The promise of something coming.....and when will it arrive?
I've gotten lazy about remembering to take the supplements, but I recently vowed to keep up, since I suspect I'm down again too much.
ReplyDeleteI love how you've said that "I believe in the innate wisdom of the body to sense what we need," and I absolutely agree. The question really becomes how we can find ways to honor that wisdom when to do so may not always been within our control or circumstances (i.e. I cannot run off to live in the desert...). I have no good answers for that question, though it's one I spend a lot of time thinking about these days.