Lost... Found...Taken

You may find this hard to believe, but when I was younger, I used to run 3-4 miles every day, do 200 push-ups, and 250 crunches; I meditated for 30 minutes-1 hour each day. I could even control my pulse rate and body temp with thought and concentration. And I kept up my routine regardless of rain, sleet, heat, or social obligations. I felt good.

That's not to say that these activities were easy. The first 200 yards of every run took determination to keep going, as did the first fifteen push-ups and the first fifty crunches. But anyone who exercises regularly knows that once you get past that hurdle, you get into "The Zone." The Zone is that place where you stop counting the steps you've taken, stop thinking about the catch in your side; you're movements become automatic; your mind drifts elsewhere or nowhere, and you just keep going. I liked The Zone.

But once I started undergraduate studies full time, I allowed time to become my master, and I lost The Zone. I just couldn't keep up with its rhythms.

Periodically over the last decade, I have tried to find my way back, but I could never quite get there. Stress or weather or just plain fatigue would push me off course again and again until I would give up the search, return home determined to try again the next day. But eventually I'd give in and stop looking.

That is, until the past few weeks. It started as a desire to get out... get out of the house, get out of town, just get out. I began taking my bicycle out to the bike path that runs by our house and going a short distance along it each day. It felt nice to be doing something, to be going somewhere but not going any place particular; I was just going. Every day, I'd go a little further and a little further, not out of any intention to do so, mind you. No. I was just enjoying myself, so I'd think, "Why not go just a few minutes more. I have time." Then one day this week, I realized I had found "The Zone." There it was on a bike path in California's central valley. Who knew?

The path is cracked and pitted by the merciless rays of the California sun, but I'm not bothered by the bumps. I speed along at a fairly quick pace, but I'm not pushing myself or the bike to our limits; I'm just cruising, knocking off the miles without even getting out of breath. I've been biking about 15 miles a day with virtually no effort, once I get beyond the confines of my neighborhood. I just roll through the farmland to the west of town and let my mind wander where it will.

Yesterday, I noticed the haze on the horizon. It was worse than the day before. Arnold Swartzenegger's drawling, broken English plays in my head, "All ov CAL-i-FORN-ia is full of smoke. De smoke is very bad for de health. It is not good to breath de smoke, especially for dose wit asthma." But I'm in The Zone. I don't care about smoke.

But today I could smell it as soon as I walked out the door. I'd gone about two miles when it enveloped me like a fog. I am one well acquainted with fog. It is my friend. So, I rode on, expecting to feel the cool moisture caress my skin, but instead there were stabs of pain as my lungs betrayed me, the acrid smoke palpably bitter in my mouth. My eyes began to burn. I had to turn back.

As I biked my way back to my air-conditioner-filtered home, I thought that this time, I had not lost The Zone; it had been taken from me. I had been forcibly ejected, and I'd only experienced it for such a precious little time. California sucks! And don't let anyone tell you differently.