A deflating end of the school year/beginning of the summer as I find myself in the all-to-familiar position of leg elevated, ice-pack wrapped around the knee. This time around I was simply making a quick little juke-move during the staff vs. 5th-graders kickball game and that’s all it took to deliver the sensation of tissue tearing. I will have to await the imaging results in order to confirm or amend the doc’s initial diagnosis of torn lateral collateral ligament. If confirmed, I will have to add LCL tear to the growing list of knee damage sustained over the past three decades or so: torn right ACL; torn meniscus (right knee); fractured tibial plateau (left); torn left ACL; torn meniscus (left).
I’ve already moved into the acceptance stage and I’m determined to head the gong this summer, no matter the physical limitations. I suppose my running goals will need to be shelved, and I will have to amend my plans to tackle some projects around the house, but I can still do calisthenics, still meditate everyday, write, play and record music, podcast, and all the rest. Gotta move forward with focus and determination.
This morning, Day One, I was up at 4am meditating. I had been jarred awake by a dream in which my wife told me she was pregnant with triplets. She assured me it would be no sweat to get an abortion, a suggestion that broke my heart, as I was feeling expansive about the prospect of rolling with this twist of fate and fully embracing the changes it would entail. In the real world, I have no intention to start a family at the age of 49, and I’m sure my wife is dead set against having kids. But damn, it was a powerful dream, and the heartbreak my dream-self felt was intense.
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Day One is in the books. The usual Saturday chore routine (mowing the lawn; doing the laundry) took up a big chunk of time, as I was puttering around like a centenarian. But I managed to get it done, get some exercise, and fool around in the studio for a little while before running out of steam. Told my wife about the triplet-abortion dream, and she responded with raised eyebrows. Or was it furrowed eyebrows? Anyway, the eyebrows can be deceptively expressive, a kind of window dressing of the soul. And lateral collateral ligaments can be like the foundation of a building, swaying with the earthquake waves in stable synchrony, only to buckle under in a fucking kickball game with 10-year-olds!