Motivational Mondays: The (Almost) Post-Anemia Climb

I remember when I returned to walking during the pandemic ... I had been feeling the need to start again, but there had been a stunning moonlight midnight and all the clouds were bright over the local hills to my southwest, and as I was shocked to see that, I heard within me: "It is time." It was April 26, 2021, my parents' 41st wedding anniversary ... so, within all the celebration of the day, I made time to climb the first steep block up my beloved Buena Vista Hill. And that was the best I could do, not having seriously walked uphill in a year ... I got up that first steep block, came down, and walked home.

Over the course of the pandemic, I had a chance to get to know and love that hill, and top it many times from different approaches ... and in 2023, there I left much heartbreak and pain and received peace and clarity to do many of the things I have done since.

This hill also was the site of my last walk before my diagnosis of severe asymptomatic anemia ... my doctor was trying to reach me and I was out walking and snapping with no idea ...

... but that would be the last time for a long time, with the prognosis being that I might be recovered by July at the earliest. Occasionally I permitted myself to ride up and sit, and as April came and went I dared a quarter of it once, from the highest of the bus stops to the top... but never from ground level, and that quarter, only once, and after I had found out something else...

Alamo Square Park is on a shorter hill, and in April I began seeing if I could top it from home, rest, and return home without difficulty...

Yes. At will by late April. So, I knew I was getting there ... just a little longer...

I had my checkup last week and was pleasantly surprised with April's test results ... about 85 percent recovered, significantly ahead of schedule given just how messed up I was in January without knowing it.

I could have been dead in February.

I was spared by the grace of God, and I learned an important lesson: not to presume on the great physical resilience I do have ... so I waited until April to even attempt the shortest hill I have access to, and also to do just a quarter of the tallest ... and I did not touch that again until yesterday, with another week added on and six weeks from April's test results.

Rarely do I make a Sunday climb; my schedule doesn't generally work like that, but Bay to Breakers Marathon is always going on in San Francisco in the third Sunday in May, and my church uses its conference line to not have everyone in traffic. That meant an early ending to the service, and again I heard within me: "It is time."

When you climb, you learn to stage your path ... when a flat part presents itself, you rest. These roses welcomed me paying attention to them with their beauty and fragrance, that first steep block up ...

Two more blocks up ... more spring loveliness...

From middle of the next block, a walkway looking over at a famous staircase ... you can just barely see the signpost in the middle of this photo...

... and both the bottom and top of that part of the climb is a good place to sit because of the hard work of Adah Bakalinsky, in my lifetime. She saw a place between corners to make a small sanctuary for people and birds to sit and rest, and the top of that place it made a first real rest stop for me to sit a while ... so, honor where honor due to the late Ms. Bakalinsky ... whenever I pass there, I will think of her now ... the stairway is her memorial...

Adah's Stairway is about a third of the way to the top of Buena Vista Hill from the ground, and it is a good rest point for such an attempt to get up to the top, and I felt well enough so that the thought did cross my mind ... but this is where I had to rein myself in ... I'm not yet in condition to do that, not even accounting for the anemia ... and I am so far recovered because I have learned the lesson: do not presume. I am graced to be alive. To even get up to Adah's Stairway from home is further than I've walked up all year -- and given that I could have been having things named after me in memorial by this time, I had to remind myself that enough really is enough. The plan was to get halfway up, and it was soon in view ...

... and there spring welcomed me ...

... before my favorite seat came into view, halfway up ... now I've been on that seat by having taken the bus, but this is the first time I've walked up since last year, and it was sweet ...

... and enough, because on that staircase, my body let me know that halfway up was just enough. I went a little further on to see if there was a particular seat in the shade that I love available, but, finding that someone else was loving that seat, I returned and sat down in the sun for a beautiful hour of thanksgiving to God ... my "regular" walking routes are now all in reach again, although, GRANTED, at just 85 percent recovered, I still dare not do this every day!

It was more than enough ... the perfect day and time and the lessons learned to get back there safely all came to me ...

1. Do not presume on the grace of God -- respect it when shown, with gratitude
2. Do not presume on physical resilience -- learn how to preserve it
3. It takes as much discipline to rest fully as it does to stay on a course of physical activity -- it takes BOTH to save your life

My doctor commended me: she knew I had followed all that she had prescribed, but what she could not account for was the discipline it took NOT to attempt to walk and climb to all my favorite places from January onward. Not that I have not enjoyed my time in flat Golden Gate Park, sitting and journaling, and slowly walking more and more as part of my commutes to do business in the city ... but my heart cried for Buena Vista Hill so many times. I controlled myself, knowing I could not risk my life like that. Could I have made it, given that I was up there just before my diagnosis? Sure. It was definitely possible. It would also have been foolish presumption that could have killed me. NO.

This day was perfect, unspoiled ... I thank God for keeping me both physically and spiritually, for adding to me great physical resilience and also great wisdom with the spiritual strength to follow that wisdom, for filling all my days of heart cries for what I should not have done with plenty of joys suited for me in my condition, and for the first good climb of the year at the proper time -- and, Lord willing, not the last!