My Body of Thanks

I was feeling rather sad the other day.  No, not because of him.  We survived Harding and Coolidge. We will survive him as well. We probably will not thrive, but we will survive. Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I am really looking forward to it because all my children and grandchildren will convene at my oldest daughter Christie’s home, and that is enough to make me extremely happy and thankful.  But there is also a twinge of apprehension.  Would my Parkinson’s symptoms slow the holiday down?  Can my vocal chords hold up to a conversation?  I am planning a small magic show for my grandchildren.  Will my digits fumble the playing cards?  Will my shaking bungle the tricks?   When we sit down at the dinner table, will the pain in my back allow me to last the meal?

There were other contributors to my melancholy.  As a youngster in suburban northern New Jersey, I would rise early Thanksgiving morning and join my father in a small game hunting trip for pheasant or rabbits.  Walking the leaf strewn floor of the deep woods and the fields of a crisp November morning, breathing in the cool, fresh air, and sharing the experience with my dad was, simply, pure happiness.  We would return home around noon, and our senses would embrace the warmth of the kitchen, the smells of roasting turkey and pies baking in the oven, and my mother’s smile as we shed our hunting clothes, donned our best clothes and our best behavior and enjoyed the day together.

I miss the feelings of those Thanksgivings.  I can no longer walk the woods as I once did.  I miss my parents and my brothers.  I was deep into this woefulness which is not a good thing because sadness is very contagious. I began to take stock of my ills.  Shaky left hand (making it difficult to write), shaky left foot which thumps at every keyboard entry, eyes which burn because my brain forgets to blink, nausea that comes and goes, legs which won’t obey my  commands, loss of smell….no scent of roasting turkey.  What usually comes to my rescue at these moments is my metacognition—my ability to step away and form perspective, to see the Big Picture.  So I began a hunt, not for small game, but for facts about the human body….the amazing structure we utilize every second of every day.  For example, my opposable thumb—useful for sticking in a pie, hitching a ride, signaling everything is good, or grasping a drumstick.  So allow me to share:

With the 60,000 miles of blood vessels inside the average human body, you could circumnavigate Earth two and a half times.  That’s a lot of plumbing.

Considering all the tissues and cells in your body, 25 million new cells are being produced each second.  That’s a little less than the population of Canada—every second! So I am a mass producer of cells, eh?  Once again, Canada’s population is used as a reference, eh?

We exercise at least 36 muscles when we smile.  For some people I know, that is too much exercise for them to exert.

We are about 70% water.  I keep on telling my family doctor not to worry about my weight gain. “It’s just water, doc.”

A person can expect to breathe in about 45 pounds of dust over his/her lifetime.  Triple that if you look under my bed.

When you blush, the lining of your stomach blushes too.  I thought it was gas.  How did scientists discover this?  Shudder……

Nerve impulses travel to and from the brain at speeds of up to 250 miles per hour, faster than a Formula 1 racecar. A few of my students drove a ‘64 Volkswagon with a faulty clutch.

When in love, the human brain releases the same cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones that are released by amphetamines. This leads to increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and intense feelings of excitement. I am still crazy in love with Polley, so that explains the above symptoms.

A full head of human hair is strong enough to support 12 tons.  Oops!  My head of hair  cannot support a feather.

The atoms that make up your human body today are the same atoms that formed during the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.  No wonder I feel old.

In 30 minutes, the human body gives off enough heat to bring a gallon of water to the boil.  If I could harness this my natural gas bill would decrease.  “Tea, my dear?”

We make around 1 to 1.6 litres of saliva a day.  Quadruple that figure if you are a Parkinson’s person.  I could be a rich man if I could locate a saliva market.

I felt better.  The failures of my body became lost in the incredible things my body still does.  I can think, I can smile, and I can laugh.  I can love and be loved. Like everyone else on this planet, I am a miracle, and that is something to be thankful for.  Some people discredit Thanksgiving, decrying the abuses the pilgrims inflicted on the local natives, the treaties broken, (and, in truth, the treaties the Native Americans also abrogated).. But I think they are missing the point.  I am grateful for my current family, but I am also thankful for the commonness shared by all humanity, besides the shared miracle of our amazing bodies…our ability to exhibit compassion and empathy and to recognize that we are all adrift on a small planet, and all of us are working hard to simply make it through the night. To me, the pilgrims and the people they asked to share their dinner table demonstrated the best of humanity.  To me, that is what Thanksgiving is really all about—that special moment when different cultures rise above their differences and embrace their human commonalities.  Ultimately holidays are symbols, and we invest in those symbols what we choose to invest.  I choose to invest gratitude and hope.  I am thankful.  I hope you have the time to reflect and be thankful as well. Start with your opposable thumb.  Happy Happy Thanksgiving.

Facts from medicaldaily.com