SPA Treatment

Emotion overcomes me as I sit in our entertainment room working on a slideshow. In the chair next to me, in what I call the throne, sits Cindy looking at a different slideshow of family pictures on the television monitor. I work instead on the last movement of a visual symphony called American Discovery, a symphony that tells the story of our 5,000 mile, year long cross country trek along the American Discovery Trail.

I call this final movement Living Well. Finally selecting and sequencing the photos for this movement comes at an opportune time. Last week I had four hours of companion coverage for Cindy, the lowest amount in more than a year. The past few weeks have seen reduced coverage, due to changing circumstances and a series of unfortunate events. Back when this smaller amount of coverage last happened I felt burdened, despite my health awareness and attention to diet, exercise and meditation. I do not feel burdened recently. I suspect working on the slideshow while sitting next to Cindy has something to do with that.

I am stuck on where to place a photo of Cindy with a long time hiking buddy who joined us on the trail. Most of the photos convey the trek across the country, the main theme of the movement. The movement also modulates with interludes that encompass one of the other movements in the symphony: Seeking Beauty, Learning Culture, Loving Kindness or Embracing Joy. Do I include this photo with “trekking” or “joy?” I finally decide to place it in a “trekking” section of the slideshow, yet I am filled with emotion regarding the magnitude of both our adventures and joy.

I recently referred to an article on this blog about what super agers do to remain mentally and emotionally vibrant as they grow old. Research indicates that being Social, Positive and Active, let’s call it the SPA treatment, is more important to aging well than diet or totally refraining from bad habits. As I pour through these photos of year long adventure, beauty, culture, kindness and joy I realize I am getting the SPA treatment through vicarious experience.

Putting together photos for this last movement has been more emotional for me than even the theme of Loving Kindness. As Cindy watches cute baby pictures flash by, I reflect on photos of trail angels. A slideshow may seem like a stretch for providing social benefits, but seeing all our trail angels again anchors me in a society grown increasingly hostile to each other, particularly as Internet warriors. Alas, I’ve been a nonpartisan warrior myself.

In our extensive travels and encounters with strangers we have met people of all backgrounds and beliefs, including those who might go to ideological battle online. People of opposing ideologies have more in common than they realize, such as treating each other with kindness and respect when they live together in community. Before becoming “civilized” in our beliefs and behaviors our nomadic backgrounds included being hospitable to strangers. Fortunately for  unimposing strangers like us (on the other hand, imposing missionaries and/or colonialists often do not fare as well), that natural instinct of being hospitable to strangers remains vibrant.

My father was an example of this. While growing up I watched Pop yell at stereotypes on the television, yet treat everyone in our village like they were his good friends, which indeed they were, regardless of who they were or what they believed. The motto he placed on his specialty advertising samples was “To have a friend. Be one.” He applied his motto without discrimination. The disconnect between ideology and reality was impressed upon me back then and ever since. We are not as bad or primitive or antisocial in person as authorities, ideologies and media would have us think.

I smile at a photo of an elderly lady confined in a wheelchair and her daughter. The caregiver for this family saw us walking by with our full packs and invited us in for a quick visit with her patient. We witnessed so much heartwarming humanity in that experience! I can feel those beneficial social hormones coursing through me now. I lean over and give Cindy a kiss on the cheek as a way of sharing.

My social impression of humanity keeps me positive as well. I wonder if being social and being positive amounts to the same thing for our species. An example of this is my recently developed plan to give people who are physically disabled pedicab rides. Looking at a photo of a trail angel in Missouri reminds me that I want to give rides to some of the people we met across the country as well. Despite the tragedy that still awaits I am filled with optimism for future adventures laced with the social awesomeness of humanity.

I look at an action slide of Cindy striding through the desert. Being active for your health does not have to involve hiking 25+ miles in 100+ degrees, though exercise ranks up there with being social, positive and active for super agers. Under the right circumstances being active can be sitting in a chair working on a slideshow. My slideshow fills me with purpose, the pertinent ingredient to being active. When completed the American Discovery symphony will serve to raise awareness for brain health and discovering America, as well as provide a tribute to Cindy.

By working on the slideshow I am being active in the present moment in a way that bridges how I have been active in the past with how I will be active in the future. With Cindy sitting next to me I feel like we are working together, whether she is glancing at my computer screen or the television monitor. Through this total SPA treatment package I’m still feeling well even with the reduced coverage of recent weeks.

I select a photo that was taken instead by a news photographer. He took the photo at Cape Henlopen, Delaware for the news story that we were the first people to continuously hike the American Discovery Trail from west to east. I select the photo as a “bookend” to a photo of us holding hands on Mt. Katahdin, near the end of our first long distance journey. I intend for this “bookend” photo to be the last one in the visual symphony.

Reaching Cape Henlopen was not the end of our journey, as we hung a left at that point to walk home to Norfolk. That was fitting for us, a couple for whom destinations grew increasingly less important than our journeys along the way. The best journeys, whether we travel the world or stay in one place, should provide us the SPA treatment without limit, along with a good amount of exercise.