This week I talked with Lena Fein, who got shut down at seven years old and spent the next four decades doing everything right, and Pat Yalon, who broke his neck surfing and had to relearn how to move his own foot.
This week, both conversations had me wondering the same thing.
Lena said she was available her whole life, just not all the way. Pat kept moving because the second he stopped, everything he hadn't dealt with was right there waiting. What got me is that neither of them knew. Lena had a severed nose as a toddler and went sixty years thinking that shallow, panicked breathing was just what breathing was. That one hit hard. How would you know? If you've never had the whole thing, the part you have just feels like the whole thing.
"I was available, just not all the way."
If something in that landed, here's where to go:
LENA FEIN
a diary read out loud, a part of herself left behind at seven, and the long work of going back for it
PATRICK YALON
a man who outran himself for years until a wave took the choice away, and what he found in the stillness
Until next time, Matt
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