Month: March 2016

ek baat pe bas yunheen teri yaad aayi.
teri bhi nahin, bas teri yaad ki yaad aayi.
us baat ki yaad aayi, un alfaz ki yaad aayi.
bas yunheen, teri yaad ki yaad aayi.

It is the fool that jumps without having considered the landing.

Last year was largely focused on the knee rehab. I probably re-injured it about 4 times through out the year. But near the end I thought I was there. Or at least I was very close to being there.

Except that now I cannot run. Or climb. The two things I so desperately want to do. I cannot ping nor pong, as it were. At least not in the same way as before. Not with any shred of confidence.

A month ago or so, I went for a lunch run with my friends at work. One friend noticed that I was recovering well, and I went on about how the knee was feeling the best it had been since I had first injured it way back when. And it was. We ran one of our normal lunch routes. It felt great. I felt great.

A little too great, perhaps. The snow was melting leaving puddles puddling all over the place. I came across one such puddle and decided that I should jump. Now, please… let me explain. There are puddles and then there are puddles. This was a sizeable puddle. This puddle, the one I so fearlessly jumped over, was an adult-sized puddle. I made the landing without a hitch. It felt great. I felt great. The run continued until the next adult-sized puddle appeared. At thing point my better judgement ought to have kicked in. I should have been happy with just the one jump. The one jump should have been enough. But what words can you use convince a fool? I leapt.

There are only two outcomes of a jump. Either you land or you break. I broke.

I felt my knee loosen. I felt bone press against bone where bone and bone ought not meet. I felt my knee buckle. A sprain doesn’t always immediately manifest. It’s the aftermath that doesn’t add up. I knew this was it, though. This was going to take me back to the start. I looked and one of my friends and told her that I wasn’t going to be able to train for the triathlon anymore. She cried a little. We finished the run.

It’s the silliest of things. The more you trust it, the more likely it is to break you. That’s just how these rivers flow. It leaves you a bit shaken though. Knee-wise I’m back to where I was a year ago, and damn-fuck-as-hell I’m not thrilled about it.

Oh, but what is there to do?
What is there to do but to sulk.
What is there to do but to try again.
Re-rehab. And so I will.

I so desperately want to run again.
You need a fool to run fool’s errands.
Here I am.

It was to please the Lord, they said.
It’s just that the Lord gets off
on the oddest of things.

I reach for the moon because it is the closest thing to the heavens that we have.

I love the sense of how drops of water in my beard turn to ice in the mornings.