The Sound of One Muscle Tearing
Riddles are on my mind
Today finds me ruminating on the nature of riddles. At their silliest and simplest, they play with preconceived notions and linguistic tricks in the questions being asked. Brain teasers, good for aging minds, tend to have more complexity that requires some thinking outside the box. Then there are those Zen riddles we’re supposed to contemplate for the enlightenment they’re designed to bring.
I do yoga almost daily and I meditate and I have yet to fully grasp the sound of one hand clapping. It’s not for lack of trying. Zen koans, with their riddle-like stories, are meant to shake the mind out of its predisposition toward logic. It’s less about trying to understand what they mean and more about what the words evoke, very much in the way poetry works on us through the senses. What might seem like a paradox, or even nonsense, to the thinking mind, can become something of a revelation in a meditative state.
In essence, once you think aha! I’ve ‘got it,’ you’ve lost it.
I said riddles are on my mind.
Early in the summer, I was easing my way into a favorite restorative yoga pose. The word ‘restorative’ is important here. The Sanskrit name for the pose, Supta Virasana, translates to Reclined Hero Pose. The names of yoga poses are riddles unto themselves.
The full expression of Supta Virasana, pictured above, is the epitome of grace and repose, not to mention flexibility.
As I maneuver my way into a safe modification — bolsters supporting my back and head — I long for that moment when my quads begin to ease and I can comfortably lie back. And breathe.
For all the times I’ve settled into this pose, carefully and mindfully, something did not feel quite right. The quadricep of my right leg felt especially stiff, not its usual giving self. So I got up, clearly not soon enough. There was no sharp pain, no sound of anything snapping. All of which had me thinking it was a strain. An understatement, as it would turn out.
To experience a quad tear is bad enough. To hear yourself saying that you got it doing a yoga pose — a restorative one at that — has all the ring of a bad joke.
If there’s a riddle here, it speaks to the paradox of an undeterred mind and spirit in an aging body.
As a reasonably fit 73-year-old woman, I grapple with the sobering reality of the ways in which aging has crept up on me and manifests itself. I was ahead of the pandemic curve when I stopped coloring my hair. Who knew it would feel liberating? Who knew silver locks would become trendy? In terms of my exercise regimen, years of running would give way to gentler forms of cardio work and yoga, neither of which is a total hedge against a touch of arthritis in the joints and some loss of elasticity in the arteries.
At the same time, the resilience that has sustained me keeps me from falling into demographic assumptions. “It takes us longer to heal,” says a friend. I don’t argue the point, especially in the early weeks of my injury when I hobbled around or sat in bed, icing and elevating a leg so bruised it was hard to imagine when I might be able to go up and down stairs without pausing at each step. I missed my daily walks.
To comprehend the collateral damage of a muscle tear — blood seeping into surrounding tissue — is to marvel at how the body signals healing with a palette of unsightly colors changing by the day. Within four weeks, I was getting out for brief walks. Another two weeks and I was almost back on track in terms of mobility. All of which places me squarely within the typical four-to-six week recovery for this kind of injury.
If I can’t quite manage the yoga sequences I was doing prior to injuring myself, I can be thankful for the gentle stretches within my repertoire, coupled with some PT sessions, that, little by little, aid in restoring strength and flexibility.
I have no illusions about what physical feats I can accomplish in this lifetime, at this age, or even what I care to challenge myself to. At any age, there are injuries that catch us by surprise, put us out of commission for a time. I may be healing well, but there’s no negating the deeper vulnerability that comes with age, not to mention the reality check it brings. Where we thought we might be may not, in fact, be where we are.
A poster on the wall of the room where I do yoga depicts 908 poses. A very small number of those are part of my daily practice. Even the ones I do regularly have differing degrees of difficulty. But the beauty of yoga is its modifications. And its variety. Different poses for different needs, moods, seasons.
Do what you can when you can. A flow (vinyasa) practice is a sequence of postures aimed at keeping the body moving in coordination with the breath. Restorative poses are designed to be held longer, taking the body and mind into a deeper place as the breath slows down.
And if you find yourself inadvertently going beyond your limit, the only option is to step back a bit. It’s okay to be miserable. Less useful is the mental beating up — how and why did this happen? Will I ever be back to where I was and does it matter?
To be truly in the moment is to let the mind settle to a point where even thoughts of being in the moment dissipate. When you have no choice but to lift your leg up on a pillow and surrender to rest and recovery, isn’t that a kind of being in the moment?
Writers, especially, are prone to wanting to make sense of things, and I can’t help seeing some equivalence between my Zen koan conundrum and the ways in which we puzzle out thoughts. Isn’t it true that when we stop racking our brains, stumbling along in our struggle for the right words, almost out of nowhere they surprise us and seem to take on a life of their own?
