On Going Out
Two years of Covid has really messed up our lives. We have forgotten or lost touch with the outdoors. From ambulatory beings, we have turned into sedentary humans glued to our remotes and our head sets. Try asking someone what their day is looking like, and they respond like it’s Ground Hog day. We’ve all become Bill Murray’s.
Recently, I watched a rerun of Seinfeld, S1:E1 in which there is a scene with Jerry doing a stand up where he’s joking about people’s love of going out -“Life used to be all about going out. What we wanted to do this evening or next? Our plans for the weekend, going fishing or camping or just a swim in the lake and barbecue afterwards.” What happened to us all ?
Stuck indoors for eighteen months, my mind feels saturated. I badly need to breathe some fresh air and get some clean oxygen into my body and exhale all that foul air that occupies my airways. It’s hard to be idle and be creative. If it wasn’t for the walk around the lake in my subdivision, I would be totally lost. Suffocated in one’s own home. Our ancestors were nomads and we instead have become couch potatoes.
The Pandora’s box that was opened in Wuhan has led to this paranoia. Our motive might have been self preservation but in trying to preserve our body we are losing our mind and our soul. Our collective mental health has suffered; or perhaps relapsed into the dark ages. Unless we willed ourselves to be creative, our minds have numbed themselves. Conversations that morphed into sound bytes with Alexander Graham Bell’s invention have now turned into texts and images mixed with sound. Soon we won’t need our vocal cords. Already communications with generation Z is by text filled with acronyms. Soon we won’t need our vocabulary.
When I see the birds corralling in my back yard and the insects gallivanting around I feel jealous. The other day, I followed a butterfly buzzing from one flower to another. The flowers are still in bloom, we have had a record harvest of everything we planted and yet we have no appetite. The mojo seems to have gone from our lives.
From liking the extra time we spend at home, the extra time at home is slowly getting to be tiresome. The itch to go out is becoming more established. But where do we go. My daughter said to me the other day, Dad, we haven’t been out to the movies in over two years. Visions of that bucket of popcorn and the smell of the butter start to appear as I digest what she said. I realized I have saturated myself binge watching movies, sitcoms, my favorite sports. Reading too is getting to be tiresome and not really revitalizing me as it used to.
Outdoors are beckoning all of us. We just need to go out into nature, into wilderness an unplanned expedition to free our spirits. A breath of fresh air, a dose of sunshine and some moisture from rain drops or even getting soaking wet. As Fall moves in after a warm summer and the dreaded November dawns, our days will get shorter and the temperatures cooler. In the Deep South it’s not that bad, we have two more months before a random winter storm arrives. But how do we go about transforming ourselves.
Go on, take some risks, set yourselves free. Experience nature, awaken your spirits and rekindle your aspirations. Get out of your shorts and pajamas and dress up. Hope you still fit into your clothes, for I found it challenging after almost two years on the couch.
Don’t let alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omicron unsettle you. Take basic precautions but be free again. Go mingle with friends and family as you used to. Don’t let those fear mongers get to you. Imagine what birds and insects would do if they couldn’t flap their wings. That’s what happened to us humans.
On a recent impromptu outing to a friends place I realized what I had been missing — The competitive spirit. Just an impromptu game of pickle ball followed by spike ball was enough to rekindle that. What a difference between sitting on the couch and getting the paddle to the ball. My idle muscles liked the challenge, of course the consequences were felt two days later. Smacking the ball cross court to your opponents dismay was exhilarating.
Spike ball was even more fun. There couldn’t be a much simpler sport that requires more skill and requires you to be fitter. Playing with kids most of whom are now as old as I was, when I came to this country was even more fun. They start by being nice to you thinking you are an old guy. Smack one ball past them and you did yourself in. Their competitive spirit is kindled and they start to show you how old you are. I tried a few acrobatic moves to show them I meant business only to feel the after effects a few weeks later.
Nothing more energizing than competitive sport outdoor. The sunshine and the fresh oxygen jump started the regeneration of my cells. Perhaps more nerve connections got made that one evening than in the previous two years. We humans after all are social beings who love the outdoors !!!
