For the last three days, my stomach has been upset something awful. I’m not doubled over in pain or anything–it’s not time to call an ambulance–but it has felt like a pubescent demon has been poking at my insides with his pitchfork.
Stop, demon, stop.
When I was a teenager, I had stomach problems constantly. I have so many memories of being curled up in my bed, knees to my chest. I used to toss back calcium tablets like they were candy corn. My therapist once said she thought my tummy troubles were because I was repressing my true (and fabulous) self. “You don’t think it was just a bad case of gas?” I said. Anyway, those days are mostly over. Mostly. A few years ago an ulcer (or something) did show up uninvited and lasted several weeks. I wanted to scream.
Well, get this shit.
In the midst of my last great intestinal undoing, I picked up a remodel job that required that I completely tear apart a friend’s subfloor, which had rotted due to water damage. I think it took two days and every hammer, crowbar, and power tool I had to bust up the tile, rip apart the linoleum underneath, and pull out the old plywood. Talk about feeling like a man. I’ve never done so much grunting in all my life. But the best part is that after I spent two afternoons absolutely fucking a floor up(!), my stomach problems completely went away.
Just like that.
My therapist said–in this instance–she thought my stomach problems were a direct result of my tendency to internalize my emotions (who, me?) and that busting some shit up was a good way for me to “get the poison out.” She’s recommended this strategy on a number of occasions–throw something, go for bike ride, break a damn sweat.
Believe it or not, I have been thinking about this advice the last few days while my stomach acids have been bubbling up and boiling over my intestinal cauldron. Actually, even BEFORE my stomach began hurting, I was thinking, I need to start walking again, maybe even running. But it’s been so damn hot. And I’ve been tired. (And drinking beer.) But when I woke up this morning and my belly was STILL hurting, I thought, Today’s the day–I’ve got to do something. So this afternoon I went to the health-food store and got some ginger/peppermint tea, as well as some kombucha, a probiotic drink that I was consistently ingesting before my recent two-week vacation but haven’t had since I’ve returned home. And whereas I think they helped, I kept thinking, Go for a run, Marcus. Get out of the house.
But again–it was like a hundred degrees outside, and I prefer to run at night.
Finally, just about the time the sun was going down and a thunderstorm warning was being issued for our area, I decided to take off. “I’m going for a run,” I told my parents, “but it’s supposed to rain.” My dad, engrossed in some television program, didn’t even look up. “You won’t melt.” So I stuffed a Ziploc bag in my pocket to protect my phone if it started raining and hit the pavement.
A half-mile in, the wind started picking up, blowing dust and trash across the road. It was like something from the movie Tombstone. Part of me thought, Marcus, go home before a tornado picks you up and sweeps you off to Oz. But surrounded by dark, billowing clouds and feeling the air push against my skin, another part of me thought, Keep running–this is what it feels like to be alive. (Don’t worry, Mom, it wasn’t lightning–very bad.) About twenty minutes in, the bottom of the sky fell out, so I ran up under a pine tree and slipped my phone into the Ziploc bag. Then I pulled my shirt off, shoved it in my pocket, and kept going.
Within minutes, I was soaked to the bone, but I was loving it–smiling, laughing, evening yelling along with the thunder (getting the poison out). Alternating running and walking, I played in the rain for two miles until I made it home, sometimes watching the “rivers” run along the sides of the streets, sometimes listening to my tennis shoes splash-splash-splash through the puddles, but never once thinking about my stomach.
That was two hours ago, and–go figure–my stomach is better. Maybe not perfect, but good enough that I’ve been going significant stretches of time without thinking about it. So that’s something. This afternoon I finished a hypnosis book that said if you’re having physical (kinesthetic) pain and can focus on something you see (visual) or hear (auditory), your pain will lessen or neutralize because it switches you over to a different input/output system. (You may want to try it NOW). So maybe that’s what happened. Or maybe it was the kombucha and ginger tea. Or maybe I had internalized a handful of emotions and frustrations (I DID just complete a road trip with my immediate family) and was able to EXTERNALIZE them.
We all need to feel alive.
Personally, I’m inclined to think it was the running and externalizing, since my body has been telling me for the last few days that it wants to run. So often I forget this, that the body has wisdom and knows what it needs. I’ve spent a lot of time lately inside with my nose in a book. I love reading, of course, but it’s easy to sit inside and 1) think I can solve everything with a book and 2) concentrate on my problems. And whereas these two activities are fun on a certain level (who doesn’t like to read and wallow?), neither of them feel like the rain on my face or sound like my shoes splash-splash-splashing through the puddles. Yes, we all need this–both once in a while and fundamentally–to connect with nature, to be soaked to the bone, to feel alive.
Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)
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There is a force, a momentum that dances with all of us, sometimes lifting us up in the air, sometimes bringing us back down in a great mystery of starts and stops.
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