I bent down to pick up a sock and felt my lower back totally seize up. “Oh no, oh no! Not when I’m in the middle of teaching a series on the lower back!” As if in some way, fate had decided to mock my conviction that movement is the solution to everything and I am somehow immune from stiffness. I decided it was the result of teaching two and a half hours on Zoom the day before. Or maybe it was because I had tried to pull that damn sapling out and had tugged so hard I had fallen backwards. Maybe I’m stressed, doing too much. Or I’m just getting old.

We went to the lake for the weekend and wanted to get some canoeing in before the predicted afternoon thunderstorms. It was lovely; a huge, pristine lake, mountains, puffy clouds, paddling along watching our timing because we wanted to be back before one o’clock when the rain would start. Except it started at 12. We increased our speed. Ron commented that he’d never seen lightning strike open water, that it usually goes for the trees. I mentioned lightning over the ocean. “Well, that’s different, there’s nothing else there!” he exclaimed.

Then, like some apocalyptic beast, a giant black cloud charged down over the mountain and exploded on us.

The rain had at first come in gradual drops, now it began to pelt.

“We better get out of here before the lightning starts!” I shouted over the teeming downpour. We began to paddle like hell. “Get out of the middle of the lake!” I screamed to Ron.

“What do you think I’m doing?” he yelled back.

“Why are you going to the right, our dock is to the left!”

“No it’s to the right!”

We blindly paddled, arguing about left and right, when a bolt of lightning hit the water right in front of us. Instantly the clap of thunder was so loud, I almost propelled right out of my seat. We scrambled to the nearest land, which happened to be a primitive campsite where a family was hurriedly packing to leave.

After the storm, we realized we had gotten lost. And I had no cell service. And my phone battery was dying. But for some reason, I was able to bring up GPS enough to see our location on the lake. We made it to the dock right as the next front came over the mountain. 

We got back to our lodging, wet, shaking and exhausted. I bent down to remove my soggy sandals and stood up in shock. My back pain was completely gone. Not a trace of stiffness, not even a hint or a memory of a backache. Did my nervous system decide that terror was more important than a stiff back? Did the frantic paddling loosen something up? Did the adrenaline from being so terrified give my muscles just the shot they needed to let go? Or was it that in such a demanding scenario, I totally forgot about my aching back and so therefore the pain did not exist? Was I propelled into some ancient fight/flight process that allowed my psoas to do what it’s supposed to do instead of just living in yellow alert all the time?

The actual lesson for me is that there are always more questions than answers. We can have all the hypotheses we want, but in the face of mystery, I simply have to accept the result. It’s moments like this that remind me there are no limits to our possibilities.

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Here’s a lesson for exploring your own possibilities – enjoy!