Body High 1: Intro to Muscle Memory
In The Before Times, you were so fit
Body High is a new West Coast Sojourn feature that reports on our physical journey. The column mostly happens in gyms, but sometimes jumps off at the park or in nature.
Whatever ends up being written in these forthcoming Body High installments, know that their reporting and revelations will be based on about 30 milligrams of THC, and that the volume is climbing. I am never more high than I am at the gym. That’s where I can tune out the world and illuminate my inside.
The worst thing that can happen from being lit at the gym is that at the end of my exertion I might absently wash my ass before my face and, for a while, be haunted by the smell of my own funk.
At the Kimmel dispensary up the block, a bud tender and I started reminiscing about the Korova 5150 bar, a 500-milligram piece of chocolate candy that Legal Weed likes to pretend was never a thing. He looked at my 100-mg purchase and asked if I was going to just swallow the whole thing. I said no, sheepishly, and up the block in the locker room, bit my gummy delivery system nearly in half.
I used to be self-consciously loud with weed smoke at the gym. Now I just assume that everyone’s baked.
Working out is the state where no one’s blowing up your phone or knocking at your door. And THC turns music into a PED, an accomplice in the vein of creatine. The worst thing that can happen from being lit at the gym is that at the end of my exertion I might absently wash my ass before my face and, for a while, be haunted by the smell of my own funk.
On this day I am coming off the mat. Out of my gym’s second-floor yoga studio and in among the weights.
Just over a year ago, I had a health crisis in Washington, nearly stroking out in Vancouver. Days later, my blood pressure went bonkers again, this time in Portland. A stressed out, overweight drunk passively courting my own demise, I was scared in a way that I’d never been made afraid.
That summer, slowly and tentatively, I started bringing myself back. In the satanic summer heat of Fresno, swimming came first. That always felt amazing. Maybe my slide—which began with losing my downtown LA apartment at the start of 2023—was reversed? Maybe this decline was merely an extension of my pandemic backslide.
How much does that answer even matter?
In Tacoma, just after Christmas of last year, I’d decided to take self-repair up a notch.
Maybe “half a notch” is more appropriate.
I took weightlifting so slowly, so carefully that I felt pathetic—newly delicate and not potent at all. Were it not for cannabis gummies I’d have become bored while working to get in shape to begin serious exercise.
But on this day that I walk out of that studio and step to the weights, a feeling comes through me that hadn’t been present in my 2024 workouts. A Yoga with Adrienne video that I’d watched a hundred times convinces me of a sublime connection to my musculature. My shoulders, back, chest and core would be gettting an amped-up approach—really trying today, because my mind and body and spirit were telling me:
Go hard. It’s cool.
Taking power off of the yoga mat and onto the conventional weight training machines has always been an elusive transfer. Here though, the spirit and sensitivity stayed. While lifting, my ability to visualize the goings-on with individual muscles was no less than in, say, bridge pose.
On each machine I lifted 20 pounds past my norms, feeling a welcome oneness with my reps.
Tipping won’t embarrass me
About 10 percent of all West Coast Sojourn subscribers pay $5 each month to consume my content, both exclusive and free. I’m glad to have every one of their contributions.
It’s hard to quantify the value of being amused or educated, but you might come up with a viable number if you try.
More impressive than the pounds and repetitions was the reassurance that my progress is real. Hours later and for days after this break-through session, the recovery pain on this 57-year-old body would also be unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Because I’m old.
Revelation on the mat does not account for old.
During the pandemic I had floated up to around 220 pounds. Now I’m back under 200, not at all pear shaped, and can see most of my penis when standing up and looking down. I’d like to weigh 175 pounds by the time I’m 60 and will settle for 190 by my July birthday. This sojourn is about how it feels to drive toward benchmarks and the mental aspect of getting there.