Rambling Down Life S Road

This book provides you with a view of what it is like to have a traumatic brain injury (TBI). It contains unedited excerpts from the diary of someone who underwent a TBI. TBIs occur frequently these days and affect more than 1.5 million people in America each year. This book is meant to give you a view from the inside out of what its like to have a TBI, encourage you find ways to avoid having or causing a TBI, and to make you laugh a little. Audio copies of this book are also available. For information about audio versions of this book, please contact the author.

This book provides you with a view of what it is like to have a traumatic brain injury (TBI). It contains unedited excerpts from the diary of someone who underwent a TBI. TBIs occur frequently these days and affect more than 1.5 million people in America each year. This book is meant to give you a view from the inside out of what its like to have a TBI, encourage you find ways to avoid having or causing a TBI, and to make you laugh a little. Audio copies of this book are also available. For information about audio versions of this book, please contact the author.

This book provides you with a view of what it is like to have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) which are quite common, affecting more than 1.5 million people in the USA each year! It contains unedited excerpts from the diary of someone who underwent a TBI, struggled significantly to regain abilities which might have been lost and ended up using his experiences with disability as an asset, rather than a detriment, for his new mission in life. This book is meant to give you a view from the inside out of what it can be like to experience the considerable effects of a TBI, encourage you to find ways to avoid having or causing a TBI, and make you laugh a little. It also contains thoughtful essays on what makes life worth living and how one can successfully adjust to significant life changes which can be imposed on you.

Zen Track Rambling came about quite by chance: First, as a joyful account to capture the feelings I experienced during my long runs; and secondly, as a means to relieve the pain, depression, and general helplessness I felt during a long-term injury. My running journey has led me to extreme highs, but has also plunged me bipolar-like into the depths of depression. The journey began in Starved Rock State Park, outside of LaSalle, Illinois, in August 1999, when I was an expatriate in Australia working in the States for a spell. At sunrise, I'd run the trails before work, then share in a communal breakfast with my workshop colleagues; yet during the work day, I would drift and daydream. I was fifty-something, and felt disconnected, not knowing who I was or where I was headed. But I put my time to good use during those humdrum workshops: I'd scribble the memories from the day's run on scraps of paper! The result of my ennui was an accumulation of paper scraps marked with ruminations of my daily runs. On my flight back to Australia, I gathered those scraps and magically scribed the poem “zen track rambling”. The title of the poem, however, is unrelated to my morning runs on the Starved Rock trails even though they were the poem's inspiration; rather, zen track is a name my Australian running mates and I coined to describe a scorching hot, blustery bike path which runs along a railway line—and, which once hosted the infamous Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin—where we often hallucinated as we ran in 100 plus-degree temperatures. As I was living and working in Australia for quite some time, I made a few friends in the South Australian Writer's Workshop, notably Kim, who encouraged me to read “zen track rambling” in one of the Poetry Under The Pier reading sessions in Henley Beach. I remember my first poetry reading like it was yesterday. Somewhat unsure of myself, I drew a deep breath and bared my soul to the gathered throng of poetry lovers. The ensuing positive reception I received convinced me to continue to write down what I felt, envisioned, and/or hallucinated on my long runs. As the years went by, I ran hundreds of miles, maybe even thousands, and the word count accumulated along with those miles. Australia was where I also got into competitive racing. On the weekends, I ran 20 plus-mile endurance runs on the sands of Henley Beach. I ran the annual 30Km South Australian Road Runners Club race many times, but it became less and less of a challenge. I could no longer ignore thoughts of running a marathon! I knew I had the distance in the bag since I was already running 20-plus mile runs each weekend on the beach. Completing that first marathon was just the beginning of my long-distance running career.Then, in June 2000, an injury crippled my running life. I had been training for the Corporate Cup, running with guys 20 years my junior and at their pace! My 5K time was a sub-20 minutes! Not bad for a fifty-year-old! But every runner knows that speedwork takes a toll on the body, and running hardcore like that resulted in very painful sciatica. I felt discouraged and depressed, and those feelings became apparent in my writing. When I think back to that time, I realize that writing had become my therapy, my way to understand my own fears and to express a hope I did not yet feel. Many of my poems, particularly, “footsteps in the sand" not only reveal my physical pain but also the mental anguish I felt. When the pain from my injury subsided—it took six long months—I felt the adrenaline urge again, but this time I replaced competitive racing with slow, long-distance running. Similarly, my writing style also changed: I started to write how I felt during those long runs in the form of race reports—instead of poetry—to memorialize my ultra-marathon experiences. My running life had finally pushed me forward into positive places on the trails and my spirit of running was renewed.