Songs of Experience

As I was putting off yet another run this December morning (because its just too cozy in my house by the woodstove), I got to wondering where the word “doldrums” originated. My first thought was that it came from the kids’ book The Phantom Tollbooth (you know how in the back of the book there’s a map with “the mountains of ignorance” and “the forest of sight” with the “point of view” at the top?). Well, sure enough there is a maze near the point of view called “The Doldrums.” The book is sitting right here by my keyboard.
Anyway, my wikipedia search informed me that The Phantom Tollbooth is NOT the source of the word “doldrums:”

“The doldrums are a belt of very still air near the equator that stalled sailing ships. The doldrums are located between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south of the equator. The doldrums are also known as the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (or ITCZ).
Early sailors named this belt of calm the doldrums because of the low spirits they found themselves in after days of no wind. To find oneself becalmed in this region could mean death in the era when wind was the only motive force available, and it was certainly a depressing experience to be isolated, in the middle of the ocean in a hot muggy climate.”

I am in a state of winter running doldrums. During this time of year there is no “motive force available” to get my tail out the door. To snap out of it, I must use a few tricks:

1.) collect all of my runner gear (hat and gloves included) and throw them in the dryer – on high – for a few minutes before I get dressed to run outside. This fools me into thinking, “Hey, its not so cold out there. I’ll be fine.”
2.) make running dates so I can’t skip my run (and because, lets’ face it, misery does love company when its below freezing).
3.) pick places to run where times (usually slow, for me, in the cold) don’t matter … and have completion goals only.
4.) keep your neck warm (the same bandanas I use on my head all year, now wrap around my neck).
5.) if you have to run at night – because it gets freakin’ dark at 5:18pm – try running straight down the middle of the fairways at your local golf-course. The moon is usually enough to light your way (and I guarantee it, there will be no golfers to chase you off; its too cold for them!).
6.) immediately strip down after a run and put on warm clothes … starting with a layer of silk long-underwear.
7.) treat yourself to a hot cappuccino afterward (go ahead and blow the 3 bucks – you earned it!).
8.) rinse and repeat.

——————————————————————————–

“Well, if you can’t laugh or think, what can you do?” asked Milo.

“Anything as long as it’s nothing, and everything as long as it isn’t anything,” explained another. “There’s lots to do; we have a very busy schedule-

“At 8 o’clock we get up, and then we spend

“From 8 to 9 daydreaming.

“From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.

“From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.

“From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.

“From ll:00 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.

“From l:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.

“From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.

“From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.

“From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.

“From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.

“From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.

“From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.

“As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.”

“You mean you’d never get anything done,” corrected Milo.

“We don’t want to get anything done,” snapped another angrily; “we want to get nothing done, and we can do that without your help.”

“You see,” continued another in a more conciliatory tone, “it’s really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?”

“I might as well,” thought Milo; “that’s where I seem to be going anyway.”

excerpt from The Lethargarians, inhabitants of The Doldrums

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2005 at 11:20 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.