One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.(Luke 6:12)
I love this time of night. All I hear is the sound of fan. And the dog snoring. I have a feeling most of what I write here will be written late at night. Yet I do envy morning people. People who can get up at the crack of dawn and immediately are awake. Really awake. Like I am right now. Over the years I have tried to be a morning person, but it always ended badly. Years ago, when I was in grad school back in Texas, I had this big idea that I could achieve morning personhood by jumping into the pool every morning. I actually do that now when I am on vacation in the summer. Picture Palm Springs, California in August. If I want to run, I have to run in the morning before the temperature breaks one hundred. So I get up and run early, my body and especially my mind protesting the entire way. When I arrive back at the hotel, I jump into the pool, which is as warm as a bath that time of year.
Back to Texas. Summers in Texas can be just as hot plus the added burden of having high humidity. Ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity, day after day. That could have easily been the weather conditions the afternoon I was sitting in the pool of my apartment and had the big idea. Well...maybe not so big, but it was an idea. In my quest to become a morning person, I would get up early, go for a jog, and then jump in the pool. Much like I do on vacations these days on Palm Spings. But sitting there in Texas, I also knew that at some point the weather would change and the mornings would turn cold.
Now at that young age, a person can and should dream big dreams. And have big ideas like, "My body will toughen up and adapt to the cooling temperature of the pool water." It was along the line of thinking that if you lift up a calf the day it is born, and continue to lift it every day from then on, by the time it becomes an adult cow you will have grown strong enough to still be able to lift it. If the human body can adapt to cow lifting, then it can adapt to pool plunging. Besides, when I was growning up, the man next door swam laps in his pool every morning even during the coldest winters. If he could do it, I could do it. What I forgot was those were the days of twenty nine cent per gallon gasoline and even cheaper natural gas, so he kept his pool heated all year long. Not so with my apartment pool.
So each day I got up, I jogged and I jumped in the pool. For a while it actually worked. I was getting in better shape, and indeed my body seemed to be adapting to the falling pool temperature. Morning personhood seemed to be mine.
But then came the day. The day that the cow got too large to lift.
In that part of Texas, cold fronts called "northers" can blow through and drop the temperature significantly in a matter of minutes. I remember driving though one and the windows of my car instantly fogged up so much I couldn't see out to drive. That was the kind of norther that swept through one day...the norther that did me in.
To run the morning after that norther required full sweats, the thick gray kind with a hood before hoodies became cool. By the end of my run my hands were numb. Then came the pool. I stood there and looked at it. Certainly the water would not have cooled down much overnight. Being a engineering major, I knew there would be some thermal lag involved. I pulled off my sweats and linger there momentarily in my swim suit. The wind was bitterly cold. Bitterly.
I dove in.
I know some medical professionals say you don't get sick from playing out in the cold. My body hadn't read those medical journals. I got sick and I got sick instantaneously. The minute I hit the water I was sick and by the time I could haul my body out of the pool I was even sicker. I know it sounds impossible. It probably was impossible. But I was sick and that was the end of the big idea.
It took forever to get well. By the time I did I had reverted back the my true identity, the night owl. The pool never recovered either. At least until the following summer. When someone else had another big idea.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
After midnight
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.(Luke 6:12)
I love this time of night. All I hear is the sound of fan. And the dog snoring. I have a feeling most of what I write here will be written late at night. Yet I do envy morning people. People who can get up at the crack of dawn and immediately are awake. Really awake. Like I am right now. Over the years I have tried to be a morning person, but it always ended badly. Years ago, when I was in grad school back in Texas, I had this big idea that I could achieve morning personhood by jumping into the pool every morning. I actually do that now when I am on vacation in the summer. Picture Palm Springs, California in August. If I want to run, I have to run in the morning before the temperature breaks one hundred. So I get up and run early, my body and especially my mind protesting the entire way. When I arrive back at the hotel, I jump into the pool, which is as warm as a bath that time of year.
Back to Texas. Summers in Texas can be just as hot plus the added burden of having high humidity. Ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity, day after day. That could have easily been the weather conditions the afternoon I was sitting in the pool of my apartment and had the big idea. Well...maybe not so big, but it was an idea. In my quest to become a morning person, I would get up early, go for a jog, and then jump in the pool. Much like I do on vacations these days on Palm Spings. But sitting there in Texas, I also knew that at some point the weather would change and the mornings would turn cold.
Now at that young age, a person can and should dream big dreams. And have big ideas like, "My body will toughen up and adapt to the cooling temperature of the pool water." It was along the line of thinking that if you lift up a calf the day it is born, and continue to lift it every day from then on, by the time it becomes an adult cow you will have grown strong enough to still be able to lift it. If the human body can adapt to cow lifting, then it can adapt to pool plunging. Besides, when I was growning up, the man next door swam laps in his pool every morning even during the coldest winters. If he could do it, I could do it. What I forgot was those were the days of twenty nine cent per gallon gasoline and even cheaper natural gas, so he kept his pool heated all year long. Not so with my apartment pool.
So each day I got up, I jogged and I jumped in the pool. For a while it actually worked. I was getting in better shape, and indeed my body seemed to be adapting to the falling pool temperature. Morning personhood seemed to be mine.
But then came the day. The day that the cow got too large to lift.
In that part of Texas, cold fronts called "northers" can blow through and drop the temperature significantly in a matter of minutes. I remember driving though one and the windows of my car instantly fogged up so much I couldn't see out to drive. That was the kind of norther that swept through one day...the norther that did me in.
To run the morning after that norther required full sweats, the thick gray kind with a hood before hoodies became cool. By the end of my run my hands were numb. Then came the pool. I stood there and looked at it. Certainly the water would not have cooled down much overnight. Being a engineering major, I knew there would be some thermal lag involved. I pulled off my sweats and linger there momentarily in my swim suit. The wind was bitterly cold. Bitterly.
I dove in.
I know some medical professionals say you don't get sick from playing out in the cold. My body hadn't read those medical journals. I got sick and I got sick instantaneously. The minute I hit the water I was sick and by the time I could haul my body out of the pool I was even sicker. I know it sounds impossible. It probably was impossible. But I was sick and that was the end of the big idea.
It took forever to get well. By the time I did I had reverted back the my true identity, the night owl. The pool never recovered either. At least until the following summer. When someone else had another big idea.
I love this time of night. All I hear is the sound of fan. And the dog snoring. I have a feeling most of what I write here will be written late at night. Yet I do envy morning people. People who can get up at the crack of dawn and immediately are awake. Really awake. Like I am right now. Over the years I have tried to be a morning person, but it always ended badly. Years ago, when I was in grad school back in Texas, I had this big idea that I could achieve morning personhood by jumping into the pool every morning. I actually do that now when I am on vacation in the summer. Picture Palm Springs, California in August. If I want to run, I have to run in the morning before the temperature breaks one hundred. So I get up and run early, my body and especially my mind protesting the entire way. When I arrive back at the hotel, I jump into the pool, which is as warm as a bath that time of year.
Back to Texas. Summers in Texas can be just as hot plus the added burden of having high humidity. Ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity, day after day. That could have easily been the weather conditions the afternoon I was sitting in the pool of my apartment and had the big idea. Well...maybe not so big, but it was an idea. In my quest to become a morning person, I would get up early, go for a jog, and then jump in the pool. Much like I do on vacations these days on Palm Spings. But sitting there in Texas, I also knew that at some point the weather would change and the mornings would turn cold.
Now at that young age, a person can and should dream big dreams. And have big ideas like, "My body will toughen up and adapt to the cooling temperature of the pool water." It was along the line of thinking that if you lift up a calf the day it is born, and continue to lift it every day from then on, by the time it becomes an adult cow you will have grown strong enough to still be able to lift it. If the human body can adapt to cow lifting, then it can adapt to pool plunging. Besides, when I was growning up, the man next door swam laps in his pool every morning even during the coldest winters. If he could do it, I could do it. What I forgot was those were the days of twenty nine cent per gallon gasoline and even cheaper natural gas, so he kept his pool heated all year long. Not so with my apartment pool.
So each day I got up, I jogged and I jumped in the pool. For a while it actually worked. I was getting in better shape, and indeed my body seemed to be adapting to the falling pool temperature. Morning personhood seemed to be mine.
But then came the day. The day that the cow got too large to lift.
In that part of Texas, cold fronts called "northers" can blow through and drop the temperature significantly in a matter of minutes. I remember driving though one and the windows of my car instantly fogged up so much I couldn't see out to drive. That was the kind of norther that swept through one day...the norther that did me in.
To run the morning after that norther required full sweats, the thick gray kind with a hood before hoodies became cool. By the end of my run my hands were numb. Then came the pool. I stood there and looked at it. Certainly the water would not have cooled down much overnight. Being a engineering major, I knew there would be some thermal lag involved. I pulled off my sweats and linger there momentarily in my swim suit. The wind was bitterly cold. Bitterly.
I dove in.
I know some medical professionals say you don't get sick from playing out in the cold. My body hadn't read those medical journals. I got sick and I got sick instantaneously. The minute I hit the water I was sick and by the time I could haul my body out of the pool I was even sicker. I know it sounds impossible. It probably was impossible. But I was sick and that was the end of the big idea.
It took forever to get well. By the time I did I had reverted back the my true identity, the night owl. The pool never recovered either. At least until the following summer. When someone else had another big idea.
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