Limping Along
I am now walking with a limp.
I've always thought there is something fundamentally laborious and grotesque in witnessing in the mechanical, material processes of life. I first had this experience watching a worm inch its way among the blades of grass on stubby, immovable proto-legs. I feel strangely like that now.
At first it felt like nothing worse than another ordinary bump or bruise. But then the feeling never came back to the spot just below my knee joint. Sifu had to leave unexpectedly to make arrangements for the annual retreat and, with no one else available, left me to conduct class while he was away. My knee began to swell a little, but I paced around trying to keep things running. The rest of my leg started to swell, and the more it swelled, the less I felt. I didn't really pay it any mind. Over the next several hours it turned some interesting colors.
I walked on it for a while, but as time when on, it became difficult. I went and limped about town, and then limped back to the car and on home. Now I am compulsively swearing when I try to stand up.
Fuck me! Damn it!....
I don't know whether this is an expression of pain or a very strange way of cheering myself on.
Yesterday I found the claw of a crayfish on on the edge of the footbridge in the park. I wondered how it got all the way up there, from a creature that lives down in the mud and the water, and could never have climbed all that way on its own. A fly landed and walked over the claw, and tilted it just slightly to one side. It's somehow meaningful. Even something as miniscule as a fly carries enough weight to make things move.
Tomorrow will be very interesting. I don't know how much feeling will come back to my leg, or what I will feel.
I've always thought there is something fundamentally laborious and grotesque in witnessing in the mechanical, material processes of life. I first had this experience watching a worm inch its way among the blades of grass on stubby, immovable proto-legs. I feel strangely like that now.
At first it felt like nothing worse than another ordinary bump or bruise. But then the feeling never came back to the spot just below my knee joint. Sifu had to leave unexpectedly to make arrangements for the annual retreat and, with no one else available, left me to conduct class while he was away. My knee began to swell a little, but I paced around trying to keep things running. The rest of my leg started to swell, and the more it swelled, the less I felt. I didn't really pay it any mind. Over the next several hours it turned some interesting colors.
I walked on it for a while, but as time when on, it became difficult. I went and limped about town, and then limped back to the car and on home. Now I am compulsively swearing when I try to stand up.
Fuck me! Damn it!....
I don't know whether this is an expression of pain or a very strange way of cheering myself on.
Yesterday I found the claw of a crayfish on on the edge of the footbridge in the park. I wondered how it got all the way up there, from a creature that lives down in the mud and the water, and could never have climbed all that way on its own. A fly landed and walked over the claw, and tilted it just slightly to one side. It's somehow meaningful. Even something as miniscule as a fly carries enough weight to make things move.
Tomorrow will be very interesting. I don't know how much feeling will come back to my leg, or what I will feel.