Movement Patterns - Instantly Recognizable

-
Last month I made a quick trip to Minneapolis to visit my elderly Aunt and Uncle. We had a great visit, made even more enjoyable by a meal at one of my favorite restaurants in the whole world, the Birchwood Cafe.

I began that morning with a long, leisurely run around the University of Minnesota campus. I always like exploring the campus, alternately taking in all the new construction and updates, and fondly remembering my days as an undergrad at the "U." I ended the run at the Birchwood, where I reveled in post-workout bliss over a pot of green tea. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the kitchen staff hurriedly move through the dining area. Immediately the thought flashed into my mind, that's Matt Worthington! (not his real name). Without even seeing his face, I immediately knew the identity of the person through his movements.

The Birchwood Cafe
While I've known the owner of the Birchwood Cafe for 30+ years, I had not seen or thought of Matt since we worked together at a Minneapolis coop in the mid-80's. Despite not having seen him for all these years, I immediately recognized Matt through his gait. Not that his gait was anomalous or otherwise out of the ordinary. His movements were actually quite ordinary. What struck me was how we each have our signature ways of carrying and moving our bodies, and the extent to which the movements of others imprints into our sense of who they are.

Our texting/Facebook-ing/Instagram-ing world tends to focus on the curated expressions of our thoughts. While words are important, we are far more than disembodied thoughts and ideas - human life is an embodied experience. I was renewed in my appreciation for the depth in which humans relate to other humans in an embodied way, and hope to continue deepening my understanding of this embodied life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You have lots of... things

-
Image
The hearse pulled into my family’s driveway at the appointed hour. My parents mentioned that an artist was stopping by, though I had no idea the artist’s entrance would imprint so indelibly in my mind. From his ginormous, black hearse, to the wild hair and beard, this man-in-black was the antithesis of the early-1970s, suburban world that I inhabited. My adoptive parents were thoroughly suburban. We had lots of stuff, and hungered for the stuff that we didn’t have. I thought nothing of this – it’s how all my friends and I lived. With one sentence, however, the artist showed me another view of all this stuff, initiating a conflicted relationship with stuff that I’ve been working with for 50+ years. Repurposed hearses are really big station wagons that can haul lots of things. As he entered our house, he hesitantly said “You have lots of… things .” The pause on “things” was pregnant with meaning, and even though I was scarcely of school-age, I grokked the layered meanings implied by the
Read more

Sweets and Your Mitochondria

-
Image
The vitality of your cellular mitochondria are a significant predictor of your health. To support your overall health, it's best to avoid low-fiber foods that are sweet. Fruit is sweet, though is generally high in fiber. A donut, on the other hand, is low in fiber and sweet. The metabolic pathways of each are significantly different, and interact with enzymes in your liver in very different ways. This plant-based donut did not check the whole-foods box Metabolic health is your mitochondria working at peak efficiency, and your liver is a mitochondria factory. When you eat low-fiber foods that are sweet, the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in your liver isn't able to bond with the receptors that initiate the production of healthy mitochondria. While your tissues may be crying out for refreshed mitochondria, the factory doors are locked when you consume low-fiber, sweet food. Not all sweet food is created equal - there are many types of sugars, such as sucrose, fructose, lac
Read more

Worklife Bardo

-
Image
  I’m currently parked in a Bardo. What, you may ask, is a Bardo? According to meditation teacher Andrew Holecek, the Tibetan word “Bardo” is translated as “gap, interval, intermediate state, transition process or in between…” The next chapter of life has yet to be written, and the final page of the previous chapter has been turned. Last month I graduated – a milestone I eagerly anticipated since my first day of grad school, nearly seven years ago. While I (mostly) appreciated the process of earning the Ph.D., I never lost sight of the goal. I was not in grad school for the sake of being in grad school – I consistently had a sense of purpose… almost a mission. Interestingly, that mission took multiple twists and turns throughout the duration of the process. Now that the final page on the grad-school chapter has been turned, the first pages of the next chapter aren’t what I expected. The various twists and turns appeared to lead into a long hallway. Like MIT’s Infinite Corridor , this h
Read more