Socks

I have been running around barefoot all summer long. I love barefoot as I can really feel dirt or grass or carpet between my toes. I love walking from a warm carpet to a cool kitchen floor on a hot summer's day. And most of all, I love digging my toes in the sand while sitting on the beach, watching the family surf the waves.

So when I recently put on a pair of socks for the first time in 4 months, I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful they felt. I mean really surprised. They were soft and warm and cushiony in my gardening shoes. Ohhhh...... how sweet it is.

My daughter #2 knows the sweetness of socks. Last winter she posted a sign on the refrigerator door. To it was pinned one gray sock with the following message:

"Lost Sock. Please help me find this sock. Reward, $6.79. Very important sock. My feet are cold."

I went to my chiropractor, Dr. Dana Zappala (drdanazappala.com) today for an adjustment. I noticed she was wearing Uggs. Now mind you, it is 89 degrees outside and Los Angeles is headed for another Santa Ana dry hot wind with temps spiking up to 101 degrees.

Why the Uggs, I ask? Apparently her home was fogged in this morning and she was chilled. She wanted to feel snuggly and cozy and warm up her bones. It threw us both into "wanting winter" so we spoke about oncoming winter fog, cold winds and socks.

Her eyes lite up and she said, pointing to her Uggs, "I am wearing socks and it feel sooooo good!" She knows the sweetness of socks.

With winter coming on, I decided to match up all the irregulars in my drawers. Had 26 socks and only got to six full pairs. Well I guess the washing machine and dryer also know the sweetness of socks.

By the way, D#2 found the sock herself and kept her reward.

A Viking Perspective.

It all a matter of perspective. A point of view is completely influenced by the sum total of all personal experiences. A communications professor once explained it this way - everything you have every said and done has lead you to this exact moment in time.

Knowing that all medicine is influenced by that same concept, I listen to my French cousin Claude while he describes unimaginable pain while walking. He tells me he can't walk more than 300 feet before needing a wheelchair or electric cart.

This is not my cousin. For all the years I have known him, he never sits still. He is always on the go; dancing (his big love), traveling, surfing, and walking all over Paris. There are many other physical feats of wonder and he is a man who lives to the fullest. To be relegated to a wheelchair is a cruel joke on such a lively man.

But see this is where the matter of perspective takes over. His diagnosis, delivered by a French Doctor, in a French hospital was simply this: Vikings!

His type hip degeneration was only seen before in the descendants of the Vikings.

If you read the previous posts, you will immediately know that this is not possible. The antecedents of the Michel clan are strictly French, Dutch and German. Not Viking. So why the declaration of a most nebulous genetic history on the part of a French Doctor?

Sum total of everything ever experienced or said by this French Doctor! A point of view influenced by the very geographical location of this French Dr.

In the US, it would have been blamed (yes we Americans love to blame) on sports. In China, blocked chi or heat or cold or bad feng shui.

Now let's give this French doctor a break, shall we? He is limited by his lack of exposure of people from around the world, from many different tribes, with a variety of aliments "never before seen, except in the case of..."

This got me thinking about perspective, point of view and the influences on our lives via exposure to that which we know nothing about.

More about this in the next post.