Wednesday, September 21, 2005
I want to go home.
So, at last, I am home again...
... if only for a while.
*****
And as he walked past her, he looked at her - not searching for her eyes, but just looking again, scanning, wondering.
And all he saw was a girl...
*****
I felt good as I mounted the machine. No pain, no fatigue. Invincible.
And then I started to run... that familiar breathless exuberance (ok ok I'm going crazy sue me) filling me.
And then the left iliotibial tract began to protest. It's been doing that for quite a while now... oft-times I've just run past the point of pain... but today I was humbled.
I had a dinner to attend, and I don't reckon it would be a good idea to stagger into a five star restaurant clinging to the arm of my dinner companion... laugh.
I stopped.
And stepped down.
*****
In the pool, as I pulled and counted down the strokes and slowly but surely began to drown...
(fifteen strokes, one breath, twenty five meters)
... it struck me that it's not so much attaining the goal that's draws me, like a moth to the flame...
... it's the flame. It's that feeling of going past the point of endurance, and out the other side...
... of hurting so much that the pain... goes... away.
(fourteen strokes, one breath, twenty five meters)
Working casualty was like that; just working, mind focused, till the point of exhaustion, and slightly beyond. Then home, draw the curtains tightly shut, and die...
... and awaken to a beautiful sunset, and the breath-taking sight of a million stars strewn haphazardly across the sky, myriad diamonds on blue velvet; the moon, a jewel set deep in the lazily rippling windswept waters of the hospital lake; ice creeping insiduously across its surface numbing it into gradual, yielding paralysis.
A few forlorn ducks drifting aimlessly in the turgid waters, freezing gradually into popsicles. The air, crisp and clear, slicing through the inadequacy of my white coat as I stride, arms akimbo...
...back to work.
It was a good life, then.
Now, all I can do is run, and swim.
... if only for a while.
*****
And as he walked past her, he looked at her - not searching for her eyes, but just looking again, scanning, wondering.
And all he saw was a girl...
*****
I felt good as I mounted the machine. No pain, no fatigue. Invincible.
And then I started to run... that familiar breathless exuberance (ok ok I'm going crazy sue me) filling me.
And then the left iliotibial tract began to protest. It's been doing that for quite a while now... oft-times I've just run past the point of pain... but today I was humbled.
I had a dinner to attend, and I don't reckon it would be a good idea to stagger into a five star restaurant clinging to the arm of my dinner companion... laugh.
I stopped.
And stepped down.
*****
In the pool, as I pulled and counted down the strokes and slowly but surely began to drown...
(fifteen strokes, one breath, twenty five meters)
... it struck me that it's not so much attaining the goal that's draws me, like a moth to the flame...
... it's the flame. It's that feeling of going past the point of endurance, and out the other side...
... of hurting so much that the pain... goes... away.
(fourteen strokes, one breath, twenty five meters)
Working casualty was like that; just working, mind focused, till the point of exhaustion, and slightly beyond. Then home, draw the curtains tightly shut, and die...
... and awaken to a beautiful sunset, and the breath-taking sight of a million stars strewn haphazardly across the sky, myriad diamonds on blue velvet; the moon, a jewel set deep in the lazily rippling windswept waters of the hospital lake; ice creeping insiduously across its surface numbing it into gradual, yielding paralysis.
A few forlorn ducks drifting aimlessly in the turgid waters, freezing gradually into popsicles. The air, crisp and clear, slicing through the inadequacy of my white coat as I stride, arms akimbo...
...back to work.
It was a good life, then.
Now, all I can do is run, and swim.
