During the first part of this year, I started noticing chronic pain in my right knee. My self-prescribed solution was to try walking more, and during the months of June and July, I gradually worked up to 10,000 steps per day. Objective number one appeared to be reached. I haven’t noticed any problems with my knee on a regular basis since then. However, toward the end of the process, I started noticing my neck tightening and hurting at the end of my walks. Four days after I hit my walking goal, I sealed my fate by taking my nephew to Kennywood to ride roller coasters. We rode “The Phantom’s Revenge” twice in the front seat, then I agreed to join him in the back seat, blissfully ignorant of the consequences for someone of what I now understand to be my advanced years. As we went over the last few bumps, I could feel and hear the bones of my neck crunching together, an excruciating experience dutifully documented by the park’s cameras. Within two weeks, I was in constant pain which has stuck with me for the six weeks up until today. Walking 4-5 miles a day helped my knee, but exchanged it for a problem which won’t let me walk 4-5 yards before the pain starts.

Because I had to be reestablished as a patient in the office here, I wasn’t able to see my doctor until last week. X-rays showed arthritis between two discs in my neck (I don’t know whether this was truly the revenge of the Phantom, or if it already existed before my ride). The consensus is that years at the computer have locked my upper body into a forward position and I need to retrain the muscles to pull backward. I started physical therapy a half hour after leaving the doctor’s office.

In addition to doing the stretches and exercises they’ve given me, I’m constantly prodding myself to remember to follow the doctor’s advice to roll my shoulders back and keep my ears over the shoulders, a position which feels as unnatural as it feels painful. I’d say I’m strutting around like Francis X. Bushman, except that you don’t know who that is, so I’d say I’m strutting around like Victor Mature, except that you (hale and hearty as you are) don’t know who that is, either.

I had my second physical therapy appointment yesterday. It didn’t seem like they were doing anything terribly demanding with me, but I found myself shuffling back to the car like one of the less spry 91-year-olds, and feeling a sudden surge of kinship with the patients shuffling in the opposite direction.

Among the things which hurt now (walking, riding in a car, sitting in a chair, breathing), using a computer is one of the most damaging. 12-15 years ago, I had serious lower back problems, with more than one instance of laying on the floor for an hour, unable to move. I gave up the regular use of a chair, alternating between sitting in front of a coffee table in half lotus and standing in front of a dresser, and my back hasn’t given me a moment’s trouble since. Now it’s looking like I need to minimize my computer time while I work on opening myself from my hunched-over position. My go-to answer to computer fatigue for several years has been to shift my work onto paper, writing text out longhand before sending it off to be transcribed, but looking down at a piece of paper now is even more agonizing than looking at a badly-positioned computer screen. I’m experimenting by composing this current text using voice transcription software, but I’m finding it much less satisfying than pen on paper. I’ve started fantasizing about a system which takes my pad of paper on the table and displays it on a screen at eye level, like the overhead projectors in grade school (which you’re again too young to remember).

What other career could I pursue which requires keeping the chin up and the head back? Buckingham Palace guard? Canadian Mountie? Ship’s figurehead?

I’m starting to think the answer may be to fight fire with fire, using the computer to fix the problems I’ve created with it by positioning the keyboard and screen in such a way that I’m forced to roll my shoulders back and place my head squarely on top of my neck. I’m greatly reducing the amount of time I spend at the machine, but am at a loss to think of what other work I could do which would retrain me to keep my ears back over my shoulders and my gaze parallel to the floor. It’s the start of a long road, but maybe the source of my downfall can be my salvation as well.

It’s been two months to the day since Glenn entered the hospital, and one month to the day since his death. I’ve started to be overwhelmed by the number of things to be done, the number of decisions to be made, and that aspect of grief which precludes doing any of it because your brain feels like it’s swimming through molasses, and all you can do is sit and stare. Burning out, I opted for a change of scenery and routine.

I decided to rent a camper cabin for two nights in Cunningham Falls State Park. These are small cabins with just enough room for a double bed and a pair of bunk beds. They have electrical outlets and an overhead light, a door which locks with a key, a picnic table and barbeque grill, and a water supply and spotless bathhouse a few steps away. Our parks have erected them in recent years on sites which were previously just for tents and RVs. (The campgrounds are now a mixture of the two types of sites.) They offer a chance to sleep in the woods to anyone who would be put off the idea by having to buy a tent, pitch it, and blow up an air mattress.

It was a good fit for me. I wanted a couple of days away from todo lists, the Internet, phones, and unnatural light, and to test my capacity for consuming banana sandwiches. Most of all, I wanted to get away from clocks, to spend just one day with no idea what time it was. This was spoiled when I realized I’d made an appointment for Thursday afternoon, was going home Thursday night, and had to turn on the cellphone. It was a good run until then. I’d still like a few days when the sun runs the show, waking and sleeping on a natural cycle.

I did, at least, spend the day with no plan, doing whatever I felt like doing next. (That turned out to be a little hiking, a lot of sleeping and porch sitting.) It wasn’t a vacation, but made a fine breather. I smiled many times at little sights and sounds and smells which brought back instant, vivid, and forgotten memories of summer camp, and delighted at how much cooler it was away from the city, under the forest canopy, with the breeze blowing up the mountain. It gave time to just sit with Glenn being gone, and let it sink in a little deeper.

With everything that’s going on now, it’s the best I can do, but it did whet my appetite for something longer and more remote. These camper cabins are part of a ring of other sites, the nearest just yards from you, so don’t go into it expecting Walden Pond. No one was rowdy, but aside from the morning, there are always voices in the distance, and cars driving around. Some of the parks have larger cabins with kitchens, sitting off by themselves. I’ll plant packing off to one with a stack of books and a week of groceries as a dream in the back of my mind.

It did strike me that, at $50 a night, these cabins would make a great alternative to hotels for travelers who don’t mind bringing their own linen. There were several good restaurants near the park, and a camp store for anything you forgot to bring. The only other commodities lacking would be the hotel room phone (who uses that anymore?) and cable TV. Maybe an evening of walking the woods or sitting at a fire with other campers would make a welcome change from dozing off to The Late Show.

I’ve put up photos and a video at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcovey/sets/72157627344932167/