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read this clip by mark sisson this morning and got whipped into shape. #nomoreexcuses #makedo

On making do.

I've been traveling this summer, mostly through Europe. Carrie and I don't have access to all the accoutrements we're used to back home in the States. Not too many gyms in the Italian countryside. I didn't feel like bringing my paddle board on the plane, and they wouldn't let me take my fat tire bike as carry-on. 

So we make do.

We go for long walks, at least 5 miles a day. We explore on foot (the best way to see any new city, by the way, is on foot). We go for swims, hikes, beach sprints, hill sprints. Whatever opportunity presents itself and looks fun, we take. 

Because it's not about the equipment. What matters is you, what you bring, how you approach the day, the opportunities you notice, and how you see the world. Is a hill something to be avoided or complain about, or is it something you conquer with relish and joy? Everywhere you go, there you are. You are the best piece of fitness equipment in the world.

I know too many people who vacation and get worse. Unless they've got access to a state-of-the-art gym and their favorite smoothie place, they lose it. They gain weight, lose fitness, grow soft. They can't imagine physical activity without formal structure. Without half the work done for them.

You've gotta take on every day like this. 

If you have work to do, you can't wait for the perfect conditions to arise. When I have to write, I'd love having the perfect cup of medium roast coffee and light rain pattering on the roof with the sun winking through the clouds... but I can't control the weather (yet). The work has to get done, and so I make do.

You've got to make do.

Go to the Limits of Your Longing

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Book of Hours, I 59

what if a much of a which of a wind by e e cummings

 

what if a much of a which of a wind

gives truth to the summer's lie;

bloodies with dizzying leaves the sun

and yanks immortal stars awry?

Blow king to beggar and queen to seem

(blow friend to fiend:blow space to time)

—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man

what if a keen of a lean wind flays

screaming hills with sleet and snow:

strangles valleys by ropes of thing

and stifles forests in white ago?

Blow hope to terror;blow seeing to blind

(blow pity to envy and soul to mind)

—whose hearts are mountains, roots are trees,

it's they shall cry hello to the spring

what if a dawn of a doom of a dream

bites this universe in two, 

peels forever out of his grave

and sprinkles nowhere with me and you?

Blow soon to never and never to twice

(blow life to isn't: blow death to was)

—all nothing's only our hugest home;

the most who die,the more we live

To Life Anew

Heart to Heart

It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.

It doesn’t have 
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—

but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.

Rita Dove

 

vibe

 

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