Numbers and Dag Aabye

Numbers are everywhere
Twenty years ago
When I looked at my watch
All I saw were two hands
And 12 numbers
Now,
I see a number for my heart rate
Another for the number of steps I’ve taken
And another for number of floors climbed
If I press the down button,
I get the date and the watch’s battery level
Another, my body’s battery level
(Whatever the fuck that is)
I press the button again,
I get a number for my stress level
Another, the elevation
Then, my intensity minutes
Then, calories burned
Then, my sleep score
Followed the numbers for the time of sunrise and sunset
I could add more numbers calibrated by my watch
But I chose not.

And that’s just a tiny portion of my life calibrated by numbers.
I have a wrist cuff to test my blood pressure
On the BC Services Account Card app on my phone
I can access more numbers;
Glucose, hemoglobin, sodium, creatinine (whatever the fuck that is)
And lipids
BC hydro tells me my kilowatts per hour for the previous day
And the days before that.
I have numbers for our bank account
Interest payments and tax versus investments
The price of cars we’re thinking of buying
The resolution on my phone, my TV and my camera.
All numbers aggregated on my computer
And the computer that is my phone.

And I wonder,
What if I was to throw away all those numbers
Live like 75-year-old Dag Aabye
In a bus
In the bush
Not far from Vernon
All these numbers would not matter
Everyday is simple.
Eat, run, read, write in a journal.
Repeat

And come the first weekend in August
In Grande Cache
Run 125 kilometres, 5180 metre elevation gain
Up and down three mountains
In what is adequately known
As the Death Race
And he would be the oldest to ever complete it
At age 68
However,
That didn’t stop him from trying again
For seven consecutive years.
Without knowing any of the numbers
That obsess me.








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