# 400 Friday, December 21, 2007 - RUNNING IN THE RAIN
I heard the rain begin, just before I picked up my sword.
It was almost 5:30 AM, and if I did the sensible thing and skipped the exercise, the alleged "run", the opportunity would be gone forever. The numbers I had seen on the bathroom scale made it plain I could not afford to miss the opportunity.
Go on, go on, get moving, I tried to push myself.
But it was raining, whined the excuse-making part of my brain.
Of course, when I used to be a professional scuba diver, I was wet all day long, so that particular excuse did not work. But surely there were others?
Just do it, don't think about it.
A coal miner was once asked how he could put up with his genuinely miserable life, knowing that every day he must walk down into the darkness, beneath the surface of the world, living in the chill darkness six days a week, like a mole, never to see the sun.
"Put one foot in front of the other", said the miner.
Put one foot in front of the other. That is the secret to doing the impossible.
This year's stem cell battles will be epic: all the forces of anti-science ideology will be lined up against the research, as will those who do their bidding in the Congress and the Senate, and the White House. They will not give up their power casually.
I dreaded the struggle ahead. So many state efforts to fight for, or against; not to mention the political efforts, the candidates for, the candidates against, and the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, the battle for funding for the National Institutes of Health, and, on and on, so many the mind blanks out and cannot handle it, and turns to pleasure instead, like playing with swords that can't hurt anyone.
I have three swords: a collapsible one for travel, a beautiful all metal practice sword with a blade thin as tissue paper, and also one that cannot rust, being made out of Chinese oak.
The wooden one was obviously the best for practice in the rain, but somehow I found myself trotting down the road carrying my favorite, slender, delicate, still in its wood-lined sheath.
Leaves were dark and sodden, making no crunching sounds underfoot. The houses were spots of light on the black street, and then I left the asphalt.
Past the row of trees and a home-made play swing is a raised path, beside the channel. The path runs twelve miles one way, but I never use that much room. Don't want to wear it out, you know, save some for other runners.
The rain sluiced down harder.
But I put my hood up.
Shuffle, shuffle, little steps, and every so often, a pause to practice the sword.
I am learning a new sword set now, the Yang style, 32 steps. It will take me a year, probably, before I can remember it all, let alone begin to do it well.
Yang is delicate, subtle, like ballet with weapons, not like the Chen, my favorite, which is more like chopping trees. Chen style is vigorous, violent, big muscle-group stuff, lean down on your right hip with sword overhead, like that; Yang is wrist flexion, balance, changes of direction, stuff that is more difficult for me.
So I do three sets of the new style, (as far as I can remember, which isn't very far) and three sets of the old Chen style, which at least I know all the way through, and can end up facing in the right direction.
Learning sword is like studying stem cells with Google alerts, the ones that send you information on whatever subject. The subject is vast and varied, impossible to keep up with, but if I read a couple dozen emails on the subject every day, I can maybe understand at least the main outlines of what's new.
Of course, it helps to have friends like Diane Wyshack, who sends me stem cell information from all around the world.
Lately it is all about the new iPS reprogramming style, which seems valuable, but is being hugely hyped by the opposition, as a way to shut down embryonic and nuclear transfer research. We need all the best research to go forward, not just one variety.
The rain struck harder, droplets flung like bullets thudthudthuddding on the path.
Pick up the pace, get the blood moving, onward, into the storm.
"Storm? This ain't no storm, this just a little bit of weather," said a gruff-voiced fragment of my past.
I remembered being on a small boat in Louisiana, a crew boat heading out to the oil rigs during what seemed to me a veritable hurricane, blasting winds, torrential downpour, and Morris, the pilot, calmly seated at the wheel, smoking, steering us out of the sheltering harbor, into the terrifying open sea.
The crew boat slithered among the gigantic waves, tsunamis, at least, every one of them, lifting and thumping our tiny wooden vessel, so we shuddered and shook.
I was sooooo seasick, and those vile cigars Morris smoked did not help.
The ash of the cigar grew longer, it needed to be finger-tapped over an ashtray.
But the boat tilted, and the ash tray (a sand-filled canvas bag with an embedded dish) scooted along the counter, sliding away from Morris.
The waves crashed, the winds shrieked, the rain went sideways in the night, and the ash grew longer on his cigar.
But Morris just waited, calm at the wheel. Presently the boat tilted back the other way, as he knew it would, and the ashtray slid and returned. He tapped his cigar, the ash fell appropriately.
Having lived in the chaos before, Morris knew what was to come.
He accepted the storm.
I took out my beautiful shining sword, and began to swoosh it back and forth, figure-eight-
I couldn't do it fast, but I could do it slow, and I liked doing that.
Some folks might have felt a little silly, hacking at raindrops, but I have never felt embarrassed when aloneâ€"this was joy.
The rain flooded down like a shower without needing to turning on a faucet. My clothes were soaked, but that was okay, they were headed for the laundry, and so was I.
A few days ago, I saw Bob Klein at a meeting of the California stem cell program.
In a hallway outside the auditorium, the chairman of the ICOC held a cell phone to his ear. He said something I couldn't hear, smiled, nodded, collapsed the phone.
There was one split second of time when nobody was tugging at his sleeve.
Well, except me. And suddenly I blurted it out, what I had been brooding on.
"Going to be a rough year, next year," I said.
He raised his eyebrows.
"Probably the most difficult of our lives," I added, "They're going to come at us with everything they've got."
I realized I was not making a lot of sense. What I meant was the opposition to stem cell research, the powerful minority, those who wanted to block the research, and--
"Yes", said Bob Klein. He nodded. And then he grinned.
As one does, when accepting a storm.
Don Reed
Don C. Reed is co-chair (with Karen Miner) of Californians for Cures, and writes for their web blog, www.stemcellbattles
|
We believe that stem cell research will revolutionize the field of medicine. With a coordinated and cooperative global effort, we can advance stem cell research in the most efficient manner.
Special project of the Genetics Policy Institute
www.ssscr.org
