Underneath

There is a current love affair with designer underwear in the young gay male demographic. When I was a young gale male, the International Male postal underwear catalog was a rave. That was nearly 40 years ago. Things do run in cycles.

Heavy-duty construction tractors are grinding on metal tracks outside my window. Boston's sewer system is undergoing major renovations. A 15-foot deep trench is making its way up my street, which sits on the ridge of an obscured urban hill. Amazing things lie under there. 

I'm not expecting to see ancient ruins. This was a pear orchard for generations before being developed into a suburban neighborhood in the 19th century. Whatever Indian artifacts remained from earlier times have long ago been unearthed, I'm sure. They are not digging low enough to find mastodon tusks. Thank goodness.

Yet there is a lot of newer stuff down there. Our electric lines, telephone lines and gas lines are neatly tucked away down there. Our water comes in from down there. Our waste exits. The new system will route the rain water away from the raw sewage. This is meant to keep the harbor cleaner, because too much rain water now floods out the treatment plant which has to discharge unprocessed sewage into Massachusetts Bay. Nasty stuff. Tough on the whales and the shellfish, to name a few.

The infrastructure under my street reminds me of my own infrastructure. Lungs that breathe without conscious effort, when I am lucky. Hormones which regulate body temperature, metabolism, emotions. Veins and arteries that silently run the fluids and living cells of my life here and there, like flexible subway tunnels. 

How much of me is always unconscious? Quite a bit...and happily so. I have experienced intentional breathing. It's no fun. I have to take quite a few chemicals to assist my automatic processes. While this is a wonderful break for me in terms of pure survival, it makes me very aware of how much hard work of being me is done without my awareness or volition. 

As a proponent of mindfulness, I often sound like a detractor of the unconscious. I realize today that mindfulness, while a wonderful and practical experience, pales next to the many intricate unconscious functions my body performs minute by minute every day. This renews my wonder at life, at evolution and at the involuntary nature of my own existence.