Pursuing the strenuous curve

Healthy neck with a curve on the left.  My neck

A highlight of our week: clothes arrive from our dear friends the Turners! (like Christmas! perfect fit - Ali=unicorns, Lillie=science)

Anyone who’s moved knows it takes about a year to make a new place feel like home.  I wonder if the process will be longer due to COVID.
 
On Wednesday, I finally tried out a chiropractor here.  Much of the unhealthy wear and tear on our hips and knees originates with misalignment in the back.  In addition, I suffer from chronic tightness in the lower back.  Enough to make me need to stretch, but not, at this point, to hinder activity. (“At this point” being key, because it will only deteriorate if I don’t get proactive, hence the visit). Ah, middle age.
 
Turns out the worst part of my spine is not the lower back.  It’s the cervical (or neck) part. This shocked me, because aside from my neck feeling stiff some mornings, it doesn’t really bother me.
 
Quite frankly, the only reason I’m sharing all this neck stuff (X-ray included) from this week is because 40% of us (at least) have a neck that is straight like mine instead of the healthy person’s curved neck.  Why? Because those of us who spend any large part of our day texting on our phone, working on our computer/iPad, or driving (or God forbid, all of the above in any given day, like me) hold our necks during those activities in a way that causes the neck to gradually lose its curve. (despite weekly yoga!)
 
What difference does that make?   It’s kind of a big deal if we don’t do anything because it means:
 
Degeneration of discs:  The healthy neck has much more space between discs due to the curve, which (as you can see) my neck lacks.  This leads to bone degeneration, and means I also have a reduced capacity to absorb any shock to the neck. My head also feels much heavier because it’s not carried properly. The good news is that I can restore the curve  (though not the bone that has already degenerated.)  This will stop future cervical degeneration and restore the space between discs. 
 
Back Pain: Turns out the strain on the neck muscles from not balancing the head properly takes the rest of the spine out of its neutral position and increases the gravitational compression on the entire spine.  This can result in the mid or lower back pain so many of us feel. Who knew?
 
A straight cervical spine often leads to headaches: (Lucky I’ve been spared these so far) and more extreme (trouble swallowing, double vision, even paralysis if gone too far!)
 
This aging thing is such a paradox. The older I get, the more I appreciate life, thus the more I want to experience. I am more focused, more courageous, more disciplined than I’ve ever been.  And yet my body needs more care, more boundaries, more time than it did twenty years ago to stay in good health.  My life out here now has weekly chiropractic visits, in addition to daily exercise, meditation, keto-centered diet (with a few cheats because….baguettes et croissants!), and a regular bedtime (which I never adhered to in years past).  
 
Last night I read (Doris Kearns Goodwin) that this attentive nurturing of the body/mind connection was something President Teddy Roosevelt was taught to embrace as a frail boy way back in the mid 19th century.  His father hired the owner of a nearby gym to build a fully equipped gymnasium on their back porch for sickly T]eddy, telling him, “Without the help of the body, the mind cannot go as far as it should…it is hard drudgery to make your body (get in shape) but I know you will do it.” Pretty avant-guard! Working to stay in shape became an important part of TR’s life, even to the point that he titled one of his most famous speeches “The Strenuous Life”.
 
Although this year is still relatively new, life has already sent reminders of the alternative (yes, death, and…). In January, Jory went on FB to wish a good friend of his a happy 50th birthday, only to read that her husband had posted that she has early onset Alzheimer’s. In a private exchange, he shared that it has progressed rapidly, and that she probably wouldn’t remember Jory at this point, although they worked together for years, took many trips to wine country, and partied together often.  Likewise, I learned that a dear friend of mine’s spouse (at 61) is back home this week after having suffered a serious stroke in December.  She is driving him to rehab three times a week while trying to hold on to her job.  
 
How lucky we are to strenuously (and proactively) strive for health and enjoy it while we have the chance.
 
On Thursday, we as a family watched Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford (2005) in which he tells the graduates he just beat cancer and hopes he has decades left to do all he wants to get done.  It reminds me that while he could create friggin’ Apple and Pixar, he (with all his money) could not cheat death.
 
“Our time” Jobs said, “Is limited.  So don’t waste it living someone else’s life…. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
 
Follow your heart, fix your neck, embrace it all, with gusto.