Toggling
Hiking presents a conundrum for me. I can never decide what to do with my eyes. If I look up and around at the grandeur—which is, in fact, why I love to tromp around in nature in the first place—I am bound to trip or roll an ankle or end up three-feet deep in mud. But if I look down to ensure I’m putting my foot where I need to put it, I miss what I came to see. So I look up and out, then down. Up and out, then down. Up and out, then down. Constantly wondering if I should be doing the other while I’m doing the one.
I never get it right.
The terrain, typically so unlike the landscape where I live, draws me in and throws away the key. I get mesmerized by the expansive forest floor, wiggling iridescent leaves, random rocks that have formed a bridge over babbling water. Then I run into a tree branch that nearly pokes my eye out. Or the competitor in me runs rampant and I get lost in the cognitive puzzle of a serendipitously carved-out pathway, the steps of least resistance, the fastest way to get from here to there. Which means, of course, I miss the Steller’s Jay observing me from a boulder and the snow-capped peaks playing Hide and Seek in the distance through the canopy of pines.
It's so hard to remember that up and down are almost always simultaneously required.
I never get it right.
My friend who is a wellness teacher at the local YMCA has three rules, and only three. First, she tells her clients, “Remember to breathe.” While it might sound redundant, it’s a simple task that is, for whatever reason, ridiculously difficult to remember to do.
Just breathe. (I stub my toe on this one all the time.)
Second, she tells them, “Stop immediately if something hurts. Yet, if it’s only achy, don’t stop, but do slow down.”
Pay attention. (Oops. Another check in a box meant to not have marks. Speed is my M.O.)
And third, she tells them, “Do not copy. It’s YOUR workout, after all. It’s YOUR body.”
Keep your eyes (and hands) to yourself. (I am prone to comparing. I like to win.)
She runs through the rules with her gathering every time before they begin a workout. She has the trio of “Thou Shalts” plastered on the wall. She repeats them ad nauseum while the pursuers of wellness are doing all the things they’ve come to be with her to do and yet, no one ever makes it through a class without forgetting. At one point or another the clients scattered across the mats hold their breath, or push a stretch, or try to arch their back like their neighbor to the left.
They never get it right.
It’s hard to be a stickler for more than one thing at a time. Sometimes, toggling is the best that we can do. Which means we’re always missing something or losing our balance or sticking our foot in the mud. All things come with a cost. We hold our breath despite our best intentions, we fail to notice the dreaded difference between a problem and a pain, we compare our weight and fate to a stranger’s as well as nearest, dearest friends. We go there, then veer back. Then, inevitably, we go there again.
Maybe we’re not supposed to be able to get it right. Maybe the point is simply to continue to try.