CL Pauwels at Large

A book I first read probably a year ago came back into recent discussion after Hubby and I physically overdid it last weekend, what with walking all over town (twice!) for the semi-annual Street Fair, followed by his 20-mile bike ride: Michael Easter’s The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self. And it was an important reminder.

Because of fibromyalgia and its mysterious pain triggers, it’s easy for me to overdo it. But Hubby is different. He bikes 12-15 miles nearly every day and gardens full-tilt all summer – 8 raised beds of veggies, almost three-quarters of an acre of landscaping, 2 chicken coops (13 hens!), and a 10-foot pond he’s pulling immense boulders out of in preparation for a new liner install. Needless to say, he’s much more physically able than I am. When I fussed over his perfectly reasonable exhaustion Saturday evening (because: underlying health concerns), he reminded me of Easter’s rules of “rewilding”:

• Rule 1: Make it really hard.
• Rule 2: Don’t die.

Granted, Easter’s book covers his 33 days in the Arctic Circle and the accompanying science to his challenges while he put those rules to the test, but the underlying theory is the important bit: “Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose” (5). We need to step outside our pampered, secure, high-tech comfort zone and stretch our existence – embrace those discomforts – to really live.

Our over-exertion didn’t begin to approach the privations Easter endured (successfully – he didn’t die!), of course, but as Hubby pointed out, we don’t know what our limits are until we test them*. “Rewilding,” Easter calls his outdoors adventures. John Muir, 120 years earlier, said, “Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as a fountain of life” (123).

Neither of us is headed for the Arctic Circle, but Hubby will keep biking (2024 goal: 4,000 miles – 1K more than last year) – pushing himself in the confines of the life we have, in our own little wilderness reserve.

And I’m dusting off my bicycle and starting a trip around the block…and beyond.

*As we’re always warned, consult your doctor before beginning an exercise program.