Sunset Over Boardman Pond and the Ormond Loop; Seeking Balance

Bulow Creek State Park, photographed in Volusia county, Florida (29 June 2014).

As I type this, August 2014 has already rolled into town. I’m not even sure what happened to July; it came and went so fast, I never even heard it say goodbye, much less hello. There was a time –when I was younger, trimmer, and had more hair– when summer days felt like they’d never end. Each day seemed like a universe of exploration and discovery, of boundless energy and activity. This summer’s been a different story for a number of reasons.

On top of work and family, I’ve been doing a little dance with my thyroid. I am hereby medically certified to have a lovely case of hypothyroidism. I almost feel like I should receive an officially-printed certificate or something. Other than a rather nasty vehicular accident shortly after my 21st birthday (and that time I drank a gallon of paint thinner when I was three and a half), this is the most significant biological “event” in my life. Overall, I have been a very lucky person health-wise, despite a few decades of moderately harsh abuse (smoking, drinking, Wayne’s World, the Macarena, and so on). Still, I can’t really call this a crisis because it simply isn’t. Of all the biological hiccups a lumbering hominid can suffer in the early 21st century, hypothyroidism is a fairly minor one. At least once you figure out what the hell is going on and start working on treatment.

I’m now on a lovely hormone regimen to help pick up the slack left behind by my pathetically ineffective thyroid, which has been crashing for about two years (I now realize). Hopefully this hormone regimen will help counter some of the symptoms of hypothyroidism I’ve been feeling these past few years: a general sense of fatigue and mild apathy, difficulty managing weight regardless of diet, an increased sensitivity to colder temperatures (thank god I’m not still in Alaska), slight memory weakness, a tightened throat, and general muscle aches.

On top of that, I’m also rockin’ an awesome Vitamin D deficiency, which I find extraordinarily funny. Why funny? Well, big, dumb mammals like you and me typically synthesize Vitamin D in reaction to direct sunlight exposure. The fact that my Vitamin D intake plummeted after I left Alaska –where it’s dark half the year– and after I returned to the scathingly bright American south is sort of funny to me. I like to blame the fact that I now have to wear pants to work, something I’d largely avoided most of my professional life by wearing shorts to class. Heh.

Nah, I can’t blame work. The Vitamin D Thing is coupled with the Thyroid Thing and is likely exacerbated by the fact that I haven’t spent nearly as much time outdoors this past year as I have during the past few decades. The ugly reality is this: When I do find the time to get out and hike about, I often can’t find the motivation to actually do so. I crash out.

A Case in Point: A few weeks ago, my wife headed to Las Vegas for a conference. Originally, I was going to go with her to the conference, so I took off work for the week. As everything played out, however, we found that I needed to stay in town to take care of Kid A (our daughter, now five). No worries, I thought. I’ll do a ton of hiking while Kid A is in her summer program. Finally: free time! But an interesting thing happened that week: I only managed to hike twice the entire week. The rest of the time, I basically sacked out in the living room. Like a zombie. And that’s the game I’ve been playing for the past two years or so, albeit in various degrees of intensity. One week I’ll feel fairly good, and the next week I’ll be an extra from The Walking Dead. Meh.

So, now that I’m on a regimen and actively working toward an actual solution (there are still certain aspects of the thyroid that need to be medically defined), I’m hoping things will balance out again and I’ll find my verve again. I hate that I’ve missed so much this past spring and summer. I’m hoping Autumn will prove to be more fruitful on the wildlife front. And I’m hoping 2015 will rock in a big, bad way. I plan to make that the case.

Featured on this post are photographs of the sun setting over Boardman Pond along the Ormond Loop near Bulow Creek State Park. It’s one of my favorite spots in Volusia county and has been since I was a kid. I’ll remember this particular sunset for a good, long while. Standing on the edge of the Loop, watching the sunlight melt into the horizon, I was (and not for the first time) struck by the absolute uniqueness of that moment in that one specific location. It was mine to experience and mine alone — because I was there. Nobody else on this earth will ever see that specific moment from where I stood. It was mine to behold, and behold I did — with my eyes, with my mind, and I suppose with my camera. In that moment, I felt a rush of need-to-do-more wash over me. A sense of renewed vigor. A surge of that old lust for life. It’s a feeling I want to hang on to and to nurture, though that’s sometimes easier said than done.

We all crash out from time to time for a variety of reasons, thyroid or otherwise, and that’s natural. But hopefully our respective tidal surges of exhaustion and/or apathy will recede and we’ll again find ourselves on dry land, ready to move forward, ready to explore. Deal with our problems and keep trudging ever forward. Chase that beautifully immaculate sunset over and beyond the horizon. Keep moving.

Note: The bird featured in the third photograph is a Wood stork, Mycteria americana, a federally-listed threatened species of Family Ciconiidae. Though threatened, they are seen quite commonly throughout parts of the Floridian peninsula, Volusia county included.

Next on Dust Tracks: We’re going to explore a bit beneath the Spanish moss of central Florida this week. A variety of awesome from spiders to frogs!