Pacing Myself
Kim and I have just had a very unusual exchange. It has to do with getting from here to there, but it’s really about how one chooses to live one’s life. I start by declaring that I feel that state of mind is a governing principle. What I mean by that is that everything from enjoyment and happiness to effectiveness and competence are a direct function of how I feel. If I feel poorly, nothing positive ever occurs. If I feel good, there are endless possibilities. Some of us can control our state of mind better than others can. I suppose some will say that is the purpose of meditation, to help you get control of your mind and in so doing, stabilize what is going on around you. But there are so many things that intrude on one’s peace of mind that total control is almost impossible. Take the simple act of trying to assemble some modular item like an IKEA bench. There might be six or seven prefabricated pieces with a dozen different screws and maybe an Allen wrench thrown in for good measure. What should be an easy and calming exercise can turn ugly if any of several things happen. A piece can go missing. A bolt can decide it won’t fit properly (naturally, that’s usually the last one you’re trying to put in). And then worst of all you can be forced to rush the process which is always a recipe for trouble.
I find that temperature, as in body temperature, has a way of impacting state of mind in a very direct manner. If I am anywhere from cold to cool, I feel as though I can move briskly through whatever task is at hand, and sometimes even faster to keep my self warmed. But if I am warm or overheated, I am generally of little use to anybody or anything. Who, among us has not been in a place where we are working on some task, and a drop of sweat comes off of our brow, and into our eye, stinging as it goes. Those moments I find terribly uncomfortable and very stress inducing. That is when my state of mind goes to hell, and I want not to be doing whatever it is, I am doing. In fact, it may cause me to question whether I ever wanted to do what I was doing and whether I should ever do what I was doing again.
Given the fairly limited array of things, there are to do in life, I think it’s a good idea to try and avoid situations where you end up questioning, whether or not you ever want to do that thing again. That is especially so when it comes to things that your spouse likes to do, and which you are willing to do under normal circumstances. Take shopping for instance. Shopping is an activity that I could live without for my entire life but which Kim cannot seem to live one day without engaging in. I accept that difference between us and respect her “gatherer“ tendencies to want to shop. I can tolerate shopping for short periods of time, but not so much if I get overheated, or if a functional equivalent of a drip of sweat gets in my eyes. At this stage of my life, I like to shop the way I like to do everything else, at a certain pace, and with an ability to sit down and rest regularly. In my view, there is very little distinction between shopping and walking around aimlessly in Midtown Manhattan. And given my many years of living in Manhattan, the sights offer little new to see, so I consider walking through Midtown as being the equivalent of shopping, whether or not, there’s actually any commerce directly involved.
We are in Manhattan for a visit with my kids this weekend and we are staying at the Cornell Club, as has become our habit. The challenge with New York has always been getting from here to there. People like Kim are very happy to take the subway and walk where I am generally more inclined towards surface transportation. What that means is that Kim goes underground and I get a cab. It used to be that you can get a yellow cab anywhere in Midtown. It feels like that is much less the case these days and that the advent of Uber and Lyft has caused the yellow cab business to somehow be less available for street hailing purposes. It used to be that you could get an Uber for less expensive transportation than a yellow cab but that seem to be part of an introductory pricing situation and now that surge pricing is the norm and Manhattan seems to be in a constant state of surge, yellow cabs are clearly a cheaper option. That said hailing a cab ain’t easy in any circumstance. That’ll put me in a distinct disadvantage when we come to New York and Kim and I are always discussing how to get from here to there.
This trip is about the kids. The kids all live in Brooklyn these days and both today and tomorrow, we will be heading to Brooklyn. As it turns out, I am also not as tolerant of long cab or Uber rides where one is stuck in heavy weekend traffic between the boroughs either. Both Kim and I remember trying to get to Brooklyn by Uber when we were last here in December (not an easy traffic time). That caused her to suggest to me that we take the subway and walk to where we were meeting the kids for dinner tonight. A thought that immediately came to my mind was rushing down the stairs to catch a subway train trudging upstairs in Brooklyn to get out of a subway tunnel and tripping along the streets of Brooklyn trying to keep up with Kim as we walk to the venue. And that whole scenario started to make me feel uncomfortable right from the get-go.
I took the time to explain to Kim that while people like my friend Mike, think that I have a habit of getting places early just because I have some obsession about promptness, the truth is that I like to get to places early and like to get to hubs like airports early because to do otherwise is to risk having to rush. Rushing is a thing I work hard to avoid. For me, rushing equates to getting overheated which equates to being uncomfortable, which equates to getting ornery. I try my best to avoid driving myself to ornery.
We moved the discussion along to how we would get to the lunch spot in Hell’s Kitchen, where we were to meet our friend Ann for lunch. She asked if I wanted to take a cab and I said that I have lots of time and didn’t mind walking. And then went off on a diatribe explaining to Kim about why I didn’t mind walking so long as I could walk at my own pace. For some reason, that didn’t seem like it was either sinking in or impactful enough so I went into a rant about why walking around town with her was difficult for me because she walks at a pace that is uncomfortable for me to maintain given some combination of my sore back and sore joints. We all know that Kim is a sweet and wonderful person and she is certainly sweet and wonderful to me, but for some reason this whole walking pace, issue troubles me enough that I felt the need to emphatically state to her that it’s important for me to either walk at my own pace, or find alternative means of transportation. I say it was a rant because Kim wasn’t saying anything. She was absorbing it and reassuring me that she would comply, but I felt that I needed to emphasize the points and at the moment a rant seemed the best way to do that. That was a sure sign that this has less to do with how Kim walks then to do with how I think. Like everyone in life, what makes me maddest are my own shortcomings, and walking around town is one of my shortcomings.
So what Kim and I have agreed is that when we walk around town or decide to take a subway and walk instead of trying to find a cab we will walk at my pace to make sure that I don’t cross that line into discomfort and orneriness. It’s taken many years, but I think I have finally figured out how to pace myself.
So, today we walked to Hell’s Kitchen and Kim walked like a Geisha behind me. I felt like her cognitive dissonance was shouting in my ear, so we are now in an Uber to Brooklyn and I finally feel at peace and at pace with myself.