The Remedy For Almost Everything

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After hiking through the desert with a heavy pack for many miles every day, I started to develop a few aches and pains, most of which have passed again. Also, resupply doesn’t always go as planned. To put these issues into perspective, I started reading “Arabian Sands” by Wilfred Thesiger, one of the greatest explorers of the 20th century. He was well known for his physical and mental toughness.

Like love, the desert sometimes hurts…

Me: “My feet hurt! I got another blister and some of the other ones are getting bigger and look infected!”

The appropriate passage in the book: Wilfred Thesiger crossed and recrossed the 250,000 square miles of the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world, in the area of modern Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman. He was in his late thirties and had worn shoes all his life but he walked barefoot so that every step in the desert burned or cut his soles.


Pansy…

Me: “Oh no! They didn’t have any gas canisters in the last resupply town and now I have to eat cold soaked food for four days!“


On one part of this journey, Thesiger travelled 2,000 miles over seven months, rationing himself and his companions to only two pints of water a day and eight pounds of flour a month, about a third of a normal diet.


When I can’t find a passage in the book that fits my particular complaint, I enter into an inner dialogue with Thesiger’s spirit:


Me: “I’m developing a weird heat rash in my elbow and knee pits! My skin doesn’t do well with heat for extended periods of time.”


Thesiger: “Pansy!”


Me: “I ran into a cactus again. It has hooks on its spines and about 50 of them are stuck in my leg!”


Thesiger: “There are cacti where you hike? Sounds like paradise!”


Not a seat…


Me: “That skin rash has taken over my crotch and lower belly! Every step now simultaneously itches and burns!”


Thesiger just rolled his eyes, shook his head  and went back to reading his book.


These feet need some rest.



Comments

  1. SusanMay 6, 2022 at 5:43 PM

    I'm appreciating your sense of humor and hope it is a balm for your discomfort!

    ReplyDelete

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