Rest In Peace; Live With Peace

Fifteen years ago today, we tightly hugged, then somberly waved farewell as I struggled to keep my eyes dry. We both knew it was our last meeting.

We stole every waking moment of the prior evening giggling about our past, expressing genuine love for each other, and discussing the unknown future: life after death...for both of us. 

He assured me his heart would rest in peace and wanted to ensure mine would live with peace, regardless of understanding.

We enjoyed an extraordinary spread of Brick Oven delights, but the company is what captured my memory. If only I could share one more moment with him.

He occasionally visits me in my dreams.  Usually in a serene park setting, he'll be standing near a tree, or leaning against a car in the parking lot. But we don't speak, and we never touch. He just observes from a short distance. His face looks vibrantly youthful, he remains calm, and he is free from suffering. That makes me happy. The faint smile he offers when our eyes meet brings me comfort beyond measure.

Every time, no matter the dream setting, his countenance remains the same; he does not change.  And I feel an overwhelming expression of love.

Then I wake up and cry just a little.  Oh, how I do miss him.

Today marked the beginning of the brief season of his end, but I am grateful to know that our earthly end is just the beginning of an eternity...together, forever, as family.

Headlines and Bottom Lines, with No Substance Between

Just sitting here, faintly shaking my head at friends who forward e-mail links or share posts about "interesting" articles.  Usually, those friends boldly, and with great conviction, comment about the content in order to sway opinion.  With due respect, I take the time to read through each article, formulate my own opinion, and offer a response.  More times than not, I receive a reply back that the sender/poster "did not actually read it yet."

What the...?!?

Hmmm. This is a frustrating pattern for someone like me: takes topic research seriously; wants to be educated; desires to gain understanding; weighs pros-and-cons to draw conclusions.

Lately, it seems that shock-and-awe headlines are appealing to the masses, who then (individually) jump to conclusions and forward their own bottom lines...expecting many followers.  Sure gives new insight to the concept of jumping forward.  And seriously calls into question where authors are getting their information?  From another headline?  Or a bottom line?  Is there any substance in-between?

Do facts, based on solid research, exist anymore?  Or, is it every opinion for itself?

So sad, really, how our techno-world of instant information is quickly becoming a society of mis-guided interpretation.

A Summer Tone

With hot temperatures on the rise, many friends are scurrying along their quick-fix regimens to get "toned" for the arrival of swim suit season.  Some are even flooding my facebook newsfeed with invites to get my skinny on at an It Works Ultimate Wrap launch party--claiming the detoxification wrap will tighten and "tone" my problem regions.  I'm not opposed to shedding a few.  However, I must toss my two cents into the first-day-of-summer breeze.  All in the name of science, of course.

"Tone" is a physiological reference to sensory adaptation regarding nerve impulse energy, and it describes the involuntary state of muscles.  Every living human has tonic receptors that feed off external stimuli to prevent them from being an immovable heap of muscle and bone tissue.

One can certainly build, define, strengthen, and even change the composition of muscle (increase lean tissue), but any attempt to improve the "tone" of muscle would be impractical and most likely result in uncontrollable spasms/tremors.

For now, I'll pass on the wraps and just don my vintage Supertramp-fashion striped tube socks.  They're just as tight, almost as effective...and nearly as logical.

Connecting Life

I'm quite simply a physiology geek...with a shot of spunk!  It took me an upwards of 25 years, but I finally earned my degree in Kinesiology, with emphasis in the Exercise Science Option.  Hence, the blog title:  In KINEXION.

It was during my stint at Fresno State that I began visualizing how all things Life--the physical, the spiritual, the social, sometimes educational, always financial, most definitely emotional, perhaps nutritional, and occasionally parental--so intricately connect dot-by-dot to create an often unpredictable, yet uniquely individual design.

The basic concepts of physics, chemistry, health, nutrition, and (of course) physiology helped me answer some of my own quandaries regarding this station I understand to be a complex life, unscripted. But as a curious sort, I'm not so much concerned with why I'm connected. Instead, I constantly question how the dots fit and what I must learn from each connection.

Life is about understanding these connections...in order to prevent disconnection.