"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..." - Dr. Seuss, Oh! The Places You'll Go!



stalled on the road: immobility
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

if you were to choose a way to twist and ruin your ankle, what would you choose:

a. having a harley davidson road mishap;
b. losing balance and hitting yourself right into the wake during wakeboaring;
c. landing on a rocky ground from basejumping; or
d. falling inappropriately doing a macaco in a roda (capoeira)

if it were up to me, i'd probably choose (c) but any of those would be fine. those are cool ways to twist an ankle and in a tim-allen- caveman-voice-with-chest-thumping-from-home-improvement, boast it to everybody i know. more than it being an injury, i would carry it like a badge. but true to my form, the universe wouldn't have planned it that way. i ruined mine while falling from the stairs in a resort in anilao over the weekend.

before you raise your eyebrows and tell me that i'm one clumsy oaf, let me explain myself: the stairs didn't have any railing and the step was uneven. it was dark and the shadow from the wall covered the uneven portion of the step. i fell on the right side which was 3 to 4 steps high and fell into the bushes. if i lost my balance on the left side, i would have fallen into the abyss of about more than 50 feet (and that would have been miserable for everybody).

yes, i have not perfected the art of falling down the stairs despite the numerous times i did it. every week i had betadine on my arms or legs or both. my grandmother was probably so immune to it that she wasn't shocked anymore everytime i did it. she must have said, 'oh, there goes that big ball rolling down the stairs again.' and when i fell down over the weekend, she might have given a hearty laugh in her grave.

but then again, i'm not that young anymore and i'm more injure prone. i'll be quite immobile for a week or two. can't drive, can't walk properly, can't play tennis (for 2 to 3 freakin' months!), no diving, no gym, etc., etc. these are the facts that i have to live by for the next few months and will brace myself for whatever sort of inactivity that i'm or i'll be experiencing.

last week (before the injury), i was stuck with the thought of immobility and how being stuck in a black hole, in dense matter can make one feel down. how being unable to do things can make one suffer. it's difficult especially the fact that i base much of my life on activity and this large chunk of inactivity causes some dissonance within. but then again, it creates space and it gives me more time to learn new things or write new articles.

when the injury happened, i didn't feel as down as i would expect me to be. i was quite jolly, in fact. probably realized that i'm still whole and there will be other opportunities to dive. even if they were able to dive on that sunday, i didn't feel that i lacked anything. i wasn't furious nor envious. it's the way i looked at this certain event. and i still had a good time with the people i was with.

the feeling of immobility is only fleeting and this is just one of the stops on the road.

*****

i would like to thank the 2 fine ladies that drove for me over the past few days. my world is still normal with you guys around.

posted by lex @ 11:27 AM,

5 Comments:

At 10:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey sorry to hear about your fall.

 
At 11:06 AM, Blogger lex said...

thanks for the concern. i'm actually doing much better now than a week ago.

 
At 3:22 PM, Blogger Daisy said...

Hi Lex! good to hear that you are feeling better and special friends like Honey is driving you around. I miss spending time with you guys! I missed that time Amats said all of you spents some time hanging at out here at home. :O) next time. Ok pagaling ka bro!

 
At 11:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

akala ko naman, immobility might force you to update your blog more often! hindi naman pala... :) jon

 
At 8:08 PM, Blogger lex said...

daisy: welcome back! the whole gang was in your place the other week. melo was even there. yup, haven't seen you for quite a while! hope that we could do that again soon and that you will be there this time around. thanks for the concern!

jon: i've realized that reading books like hundred years of solitude and the god of small things do not help in writing. in fact, i found it difficult to write after those books. and i went out on trips. hehehe... nothing deters a determined man to go outdoors!

 

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