My last BCFB was nearly three weeks ago, on July 27th. It’s been such a wet summer that there just weren’t many mornings fit for it. But today was a banner day for seeing things that were only distant memories. Like the blue skies and sunshine we had this afternoon. I’m always reminded of Ray Bradbury’s short story, “All Summer in a Day” on days like today. Look it up. It’s quite interesting.
Last night, I ate a spicy — very spicy, actually — squid stir fry. It was delicious, right on the edge of the pain of not being able to enjoy the rest of the meal, but not so much that it ruined my evening. It was incredibly good with a tall, cold bottle of Qingdao, and I regret nothing.
It did make for some interesting dreams though. I can really only remember one. I was out with a group of friends at a buffet-kind of place, but there was a rectangular table, about stomach high, on which all of the uncooked food was laid out. The idea was to get a small, wooden plate — about 6 inches in diameter with a quarter-inch lip — put your food on it, take it over to the grill, and they’d cook it for you. The thing is, I couldn’t get the food to stay on the plate. It would just slip right off, no matter how hard I tried. Apparently, this was a regular thing too. The floor was covered with food.
But I finally managed, with only a small portion to cover the plate and after a great deal of delicate concentration. Then, as I was turning ever so carefully to take the food to the grill — and here I kid you not — Paul Rudd swoops in, grabs my plate, slams it down and wipes the food onto the table, where he smacks it flat with his hand! And he’s laughing the whole time like it’s some kind of joke, but I was just standing there in shock because I’d worked so hard to get my food onto that plate!
So yeah, spicy squid’ll do that to me I guess.
Anyway, It’s not like I didn’t get at least some sleep, but still, I found myself awake at four, and, what the heck, the weather looked good enough for a ride. So I did my 22nd BCFB of the year — just over 20 miles around the base and then some — and it was alright.
It also happens that I’m listening to the book Breath by James Nestor. It’s a fascinating piece of work so far — quite readable. It’s all about how breathing is a massively underrated function that we take for granted, and that our health could be improved significantly if we paid it more attention. Nestor goes deep into a lot of anecdotal stuff, as well as what you might call the history of breathing — evolution, Tibetan mystics, Chinese Daoists, Native American tribal stuff — so of course it’s gathered a bit of skepticism. “Pseudoscience,” some say. “Not enough real research.” But, yeah — I’m thinking, “that’s what ‘massively underrated’ does for you.” I’m not falling for it hook, line, and sinker; but I’m giving it a look to see if what he’s saying has any merit. It really does seem reasonable when you think about it.
And so I kept my mouth closed for almost the entire ride this morning. That’s kind of counterintuitive, but I could see where he was coming from once I got his explanations about how mouth breathing is actually really not good for us at all. And I’m thinking, with a little practice, I could see how this might work. It took some getting used to, but I hit a couple of good, deep, satisfying breaths in there. Still a bit rough on the uphills, and a few times where I had to huff out a bit through the mouth (still breathing in through the nose as much as I could), but I think it’s worth a deeper look. Plus I’m only a third of the way through the book anyway. I’m sure there’s still some learning to do, although some of the negative reviews said they could boil the book down to pretty much one thing — “Breathe through your nose.” I might add, though, that he was interviewed by Joe Rogan, so that probably accounts for some of the hate. Some people just hate Rogan that much.
So anyway, that was the adventure to start the day. And we had blue skies. And I think the summer is turning a corner and things are looking up. So there’s that.
