Wind is a difficult thing to capture

Since I began hyperthyroid treatment in February, my year has been a continuance of peaks of valleys. Fluctuations are far preferable to an ever-deepening valley. Still, this truth provides little comfort when I dip into another low. Suppressed by opaque shadows, I spend far too much time trying to see over the next rise. I type vague inquiries into Google. "Why is my coordination even worse than normal? Why can't I concentrate? What is the deal with this moody weirdness?" Answers are just flecks of snow tumbled by the wind, unable to attach to anything.

My creativity suffers when I'm in one of these valleys. My thoughts are muddled; my emotions seem flat — that is, until some teenage-like bout of angst tears through the fragile veneer, and I anxiously ruminate on realities that I can't control. How much of this can I blame on hormones? How much of this is rooted in mental health? Aging? How much is just my personality ... and what even is the difference? Between me and my hormones? Between me and the pills I take to purportedly correct the imbalance? Although I like to believe I control "who I am," this precarious biological symmetry reveals the vulnerability of self.

I'm not trying to make excuses or create a crisis where none exists. These are the ebbs of life, the necessary counterbalances to joy and exhilaration. I count on this equity when I look toward the next as-yet-unseen peak, and promise myself that soon, very soon, I'll bust out of these shadows and bask in the sunlight. The weather on that day won't really matter. What I'm doing on that day won't really matter. The balance will shift, and I'll be a new person, yet again.

In the meantime, just keep living life. Beat and I wanted to spend some time in the mountains this weekend, and invited our friend Jorge for a Sunday hike on Niwot Ridge. We expected a warm, marginally windy outing, but shouldn't have been surprised when the Continental Divide wind funnel delivered storm-force gales. Not all that far away in Boulder, it was a placid afternoon with temperatures in the 50s. But the mountains have their own systems. Chunks of ice clogged my hydration hose; the temperature was below freezing before windchill. And the windchill was fierce. The moment we cleared tree line, we were scrambling to throw on layers before our fingers froze.

Miles before we cleared tree line, I was already pressed against a wall. Trailing far behind Beat and Jorge, I focused on the rhythm of breathing. Inhale, long exhale, inhale, etc. I was trying to keep my breathing from becoming too shallow, trying to will it to pull more oxygen into my bloodstream, toward my muscles, which felt terribly underworked, but they needed more fuel to move any faster. It just wasn't there. I felt mildly dizzy. My breathing became more desperate. I slowed my steps, consciously calming everything down.

Beat and Jorge frequently stopped to wait for me. As soon as I caught up, they pulled away as though I was standing still. I watched them march breezily up the trail and fought a surge of resentment. How can this be so easy for them? But, really, it was just as easy for me, not even two months ago. Weird how much fitness I can lose, just like that. Like creativity, my physical fitness operates well at the peaks, less well in the valleys. It still works, though. I can still write a page or post here and there (under much strong-arming from my ego.) And I can still go for long hikes (slow but steady.) If and when I crawl out of this valley, I know I'll be strong again. The thought brings little comfort, though, when I realize how much of a mockery this illness has made of my training. In this regard, my efforts don't matter. Did they ever?


Beat heard me gasping and urged me to relax. We were at high altitude, he reasoned, and he was breathing hard, too. It's difficult to describe why these struggles are different. Then again, maybe they're not. I tried to remember how it used to feel, hunched in a 30-mph wind at high altitude, back when I felt normal. When would that be? I think my strongest years were 2012 to 2013, and then there were a few injuries and mental setbacks. The seismic shift I believe happened in June 2015, but really, everything ebbed and flowed long before that. Perhaps this normalcy I've been striving for doesn't even exist.

It's not unlike battling this wind. The initial steps into the gale are shocking — the force slams into my face and draws air from my lungs as fingers flash-freeze. I'm forced to press my chin into my neck and squint into a blast of blowing snow. The roar of the wind is deafening. But as I climb, the volume decreases. Blood flows into my fingers and toes. I can lift my head again. The wind is still blowing just as hard. The steps are just as difficult. But this has become the new normal.

For nearly three miles I slogged at a pace that can truly be described as glacial. Inevitably we topped out at a high point on the ridge, took a few photos, and turned our backs to the wind. The tailwind swept us downhill as I stumbled over a tricky surface of tundra and sastrugi, and then we were back in the forest. With the thick shelter of trees and an east-facing slope, the world was suddenly calm. It was a jarring contrast — similar to stepping through the doors of a loud concert venue and entering an abandoned parking lot. Back in August, I was trying to describe to a friend the physical shift I experienced on "good weeks" —when my breathing became better, my head was clearer, and even though it was hot and thunderstormy and one the doggiest days of summer, the world seemed remarkably brighter. I couldn't find the words then, and can scarcely remember it now, but I think the feeling was like this. Stepping out of the normalcy of gale-force wind, into sudden calm.

After the hike, I downloaded my photos and felt disappointed that they didn't better illustrate the intensity of Niwot's gale. Wind is a difficult thing to capture. But we keep trying.