Ten years ago I posted “The Alzheimer’s Murder Mystery,” critiquing the emphasis on anti-amyloid research and drugs. My continued curation of brain health updates came up with three articles related to and verifying that post.
While a nasal spray may someday prove to be the best medical answer for dementia, I will never let go of my emphasis on lifestyle factors. An article touting combined mind-body exercise fits this bill. Though focused on people with ADHD, the pathways involved seem to me to be just as legitimate for combating cognitive decline.
I can’t help myself. I love finding out the Murder Mystery post was ten years ahead of the times. Please like and share this content. Encourage your friends to subscribe to the website as well.
Several factors fueled my belief in humanity, such as the kindness experienced during long distance journeys. The hiking community calls the serendipitous acts of kindness they experience “trail magic.” With my Google Alerts set to “trail magic” and “trail angel,” I will occasionally curate the results for trail magic updates.
Trail magic has changed over the course of my lifetime. Originally, trail magic was something that happened by serendipitous surprise. Now there is more of an expectation that at certain town stops or trail crossings some trail magic is expected. My curation will emphasize the former. With this first update I found one story that meets my standards.
“But in the Bear’s Den Hostel in 2003, “what those other hikers didn’t know was that I didn’t give a shit what happened to me back then,” says Riddle. He’d been on the AT for three years running from law enforcement after skipping town on parole with a hefty prison sentence hanging over his head. That September, he planned “to hike down to McAfee Knob and take a headfirst dive into oblivion.”
I keep my eyes open for travel oddities. Two of them occurred in Tucson during the week of St. Patrick’s Day.
While walking down the hallway from my room I spotted housekeepers cleaning through an open door to another room. The Residence Inn guest in this particular room evidently had the holiday spirit by the prominent presence of something green. I am not talking about green figures of leprechauns or shamrocks. No, I am talking about the Christmas spirit, as revealed by a four foot Christmas tree perched on a coffee table. On March 17. In a resort guest room.
I mainly exercised in the air conditioned fitness center to avoid the desert heat. The exception was the laps I ran around a kidney shaped pool, 3-5 feet in depth. For a good twenty minutes I “ran” through the water, switching to a breast stroke for about eight feet along the “deep” end.
The only other person in the pool area sunbathed during my laps. I imagined I appeared quite odd to him. How many people run countless laps around a small pool at a resort? When the sunbather got up to enter the pool I offered to leave but he encouraged me to stay.
I put my schmoozing skills back to work and we engaged in conversation. My new friend was a pilot from Germany attending a training center in Tucson. He married late, waiting until he could make family his first priority. His work now calls him away one week a month, but he focuses on family and home improvement projects for the other three weeks.
Meeting my German friend gave me even more incentive to meet people while giving presentations combining readings and music. Unfortunately, my acquisition of a car now needs to be put on hold. Our son Noah’s car has gone kaput and I need to divert those savings as a loan to help him out. The importance of wrapping up his undergraduate studies as a premed surpasses my needs for now.
I spent four days of reflection in the desert aura of Tucson, Arizona while staying at a Residence Inn.
Around 7:00 am each day, I had the morning caregiver for Cindy call me. She held the phone near Cindy for my greeting. I went with the usual endearments: “you’re my Expedition Woman,” “we make a great team,” “I’ll be back soon,” “I love you.” I also sang to her a few lines from songs like “Cindy” and “Good morning.”
Points from our timeshare that I usually cannot use saved money on booking a room. Free breakfast buffets and a kitchenette minimized expenses further. Needing an Uber to get anywhere would have added an expense but I mainly stayed at the resort. The 100 degree temperature and an air conditioned fitness room influenced that decision.
The first morning after the phone call I managed to walk about a mile to a Walmart for some essentials. The outing provided enough of a desert aura to stir the senses and memories. The calendar said winter; the weather said summer. The vegetation bridged the difference with vestiges of a desert spring. When growing in the inhospitable desert, plants bloom with gusto whenever the short window of opportunity arises.
I kept to a hiker’s desert heat schedule of hiking/walking mostly before nine or after five. Early morning light bathed the distant mountains; desert wrens escorted my walk with song. I smelled and felt more “desert” than “heat” on my walk. The opposite occurs between nine to five with blanched colors, silent birds and the desert smelling and feeling more like an oven.
I am a proud resident from the Icebox of Connecticut, but I embraced the aura of being in the desert. Who knows when or if I will feel this aura again. This alone made my four day respite worth the air travel, though I prefer the ratio of resort to travel days being greater than 1:1. Considering I mainly wanted to reflect during my respite, spending near equal time with air travel did not matter as much to me. I got to interact with new folks just as well, perhaps more so.
On the way out I sat next to Zac, a freshman in college studying computer science who will be receiving heart surgery soon. As he got up to use the bathroom I unwound his defibrillator from the seat belt, which got the conversation started. I watched and learned how he applied code to alter a chess program. The computer had to choose the fifth best move, which led to it losing no matter how poorly Zac deliberately played.
At the resort I practiced my schmoozing skills on the concierges: Katie, Jon and Cassandra. The knack for schmoozing came from my father, the specialty advertising salesman. Alas, I never picked up his ability to make sales as well, but I have made countless friends out of strangers during the course of my long distance hikes.
To continue with writings, music and presentations for humanity I need to get back to schmoozing with people I just met. When we walked across the country people reading the blog expressed how it changed their views on humanity. Reporting on the kindness of others requires leaving home to meet them, which gets to the main purpose of my trip. How comfortable am I to leave Cindy for how long?
A couple years ago I left Cindy at Geer Village while I took a long weekend off. When I picked Cindy up I did not feel good about leaving her there. The aides did nothing wrong, but a little of her spark seemed to be gone. When I got back home from Tucson after leaving Cindy for twice as long she looked OK for her current condition. Being at home matters, perhaps as much as being with me.
Indeed, I likely had more discomfort than Cindy at being away for four days. Plus the coverage, though sufficient during that time, still ran into a few snags. I believe I will need to limit my schmoozing excursions to 1-2 days, all within a few hour driving distance.
I just returned from Tucson, Arizona for what you might call a trial respite. Not since 2017 have I gone past driving distance from my home. Back then I left for a week while our oldest daughter Charissa stayed with Cindy. That one week vacation provided some respite, but also some unease at being away from my Expedition Woman. Would this shorter, four day vacation have a similar effect? With a potential increase in coverage coming my way I wanted to know.
Why Tucson? The idea started with a potential live-in caregiver that I ruled out before going to Tucson. I still went because of the location and weather for March. I may return to long distance hiking in another phase of life but Tucson lies too far south to be in my path. This means now or never. Now normally would be a great time for a southern destination during the last week of winter, except that Tucson endured a record breaking heatwave.
Why Now? My coverage situation for the past week makes this the most ideal time in the past nine years for going this far away from home. I have more agency coverage, though that alone would have caused problems given the snags that happened. Fortunately, our son Noah was home from spring break during the week. A high school classmate Gary also borders with us temporarily as he seeks permanent housing.
The respite provided time for reflection on my next adjustments as a dedicate care partner with the potential for expanded coverage.
I am engaged in a ten year endeavor I call “The Unenlightened Wisdom Project: Journeying from Brain Health to Democracy.” Some of the themes from that project overlap with this one and I occasionally will include excerpts. This first one about the journey of life comes from the White Paper that gives an overview of the whole ten year scope. Dave Coverly, the award winning cartoonist for the syndicated “Speed Bump,” graciously provides cartoons for this project. The former philosophy major stated: “This is just great. I am honored to be a part of this.”
“I hiked over 20,000 miles via long distance wilderness journeys, taking up to a year to complete. Sometimes I followed well-defined trails, sometimes I used a map and compass to pioneer cross country routes. Thousands of miles of experience determined the routes I chose and the wisdom I gathered along the way.
To those who commented over the years that my journeys sounded like recreational fun, I cautioned that even a well-defined trail can provide challenges related to terrain and weather, not to mention the challenges that one’s own physical or mental conditions impose. Navigating cross country with map and compass introduced additional challenges, such as finding oneself immersed in an oppressively dense spruce and fir forest, or looking down a formidable cliff not fully revealed by the contour lines on a 1:250:000 scale topo map. I considered none of those experiences as recreational fun, though in the end they provided wisdom, satisfaction and great stories to tell.
To those who believed only masochists endure the inconvenience, discomfort and pain of having to hike every day, regardless of environmental or personal conditions, I pointed out that every way of life has challenges that must be endured. At least wilderness journeys provide simple, unbiased challenges to be met. The rainstorm does not care who you are and sheltering yourself from the storm is a simple matter if you are experienced. The grand diversity of humanity means we find joy in different activities; but for me no other way of life matches the joy experienced during a wilderness journey.
For years I compared these journeys to a way of life for inquiring minds who were curious or mistaken, filled with the rewards, challenges and routines that all ways of life involve. Now I am struck by how life resembles a journey. With both our lives and journeys we seek to explore, learn and grow along the way.
My long distance journeys brought me into frequent contact with strangers who turned into instant friends. The kindness strangers extended to me, the kindness communities provided to their own and the belonging I felt with other long distance hikers during these journeys shaped the creed that guides my journey of life:
“Love kindness. Build community. Believe in humanity.”
Civilization features the presence of mass societies. The challenges of a journey in mass societies exceed the challenges of a journey in a wilderness landscape. The inherent complexities, chaos and confusion of mass societies increase dependence on authorities to guide us. Authorities, representatives and many academics tend to favor materialism and individualism. If we instead seek a humanitarian journey in civilized society, a wise place to start is with our own brain health.”
Visit the Unenlightened Wisdom Project website. By subscribing you get a free copy of the White Paper. Encourage your friends to subscribe, like and share content from this website as well.
I discovered a new sleep hack I can add to the ones I shared previously. In my Elder Rest post I distinguished between hacks to help me fall asleep at bedtime from those needed when waking up in the middle of the night. I have the most trouble falling back asleep at around 4:00 am. By that time 2-3 sleep cycles already have occurred.
For falling back asleep in the wee hours holding Cindy’s hand and deep breathing help. Counting the deep breaths turns this tactic into a mindfulness form of counting sheep. Perhaps brought about by the long snow season, I now have a third wee hour tactic. I go for a walk/jog in my mind.
During “outdoor” season I go for 5-10 mile jaunts pushing Cindy in the adult stroller. During “indoor” season I occasionally manage to go outside for 3-5 mile jaunts. I have followed a handful of routes hundreds of times, ingraining each one into my mind. The saying “I can do that in my sleep,” literally applies here.
When I go for hikes in the waking world I sometimes have a particular problem I want to solve. My mind drifts instead to wherever it wants to go instead. The same principle applies to the sleep world. We stay awake because too much weighs on our minds. By going for that walk in my mind my thoughts turn to my “surroundings” rather than my issues. Pair this with deep breathing and you have a form of meditation.
I still recommend deep breathing and counting first if you only need one strategy to fall asleep in the wee hours. I often need two. If you go for frequent walks over familiar routes, which you should do anyways for other health reasons if possible, add this new hack for a form of meditation. Then again, holding a partner’s hand if you have one helps two people. All three hacks can be done simultaneously, essentially meditating while at one with someone else.
I am starting to sound like a New Age guru. Please offer your own sleep hacks in the comments if you have them. Like and share this one with others. Encourage your friends to subscribe.
