The Injury that Waited Politely Until Morning

There are mornings when waking up should genuinely be optional. Today would have been one of them.

I opened my eyes and knew immediately — before I had fully arrived into consciousness, before the day had properly begun — that something was wrong with my legs. A soft tissue injury, most likely earned during yesterday's training and left to announce itself overnight in the way these things do, waiting patiently for the body to cool and rest before making its presence known. Quietly, then all at once.

The morning session was spent in a café instead. Finishing this month's field journal, editing, and posting it to the website — not a task I particularly love, but one that carries its own strange reward. Reading back through a month of days, the highs and the lows pressing up against each other on the page, is a reminder that a great deal more happens in thirty days than it ever feels like in the living of them. There are always many more moments than you thought you had.

By afternoon, guilt had arrived — reliable as ever, right on schedule — and talked me into the conclusion that I should train. Lightly, of course. Carefully. With restraint and good judgment.

Anyone who knows me will already know how that was always going to go.

The moment I saw a weapon, the decision was made. There is something about the sight of one that bypasses every reasonable intention I have ever formed — like a young boy who has been told, very clearly, that he cannot play with the puppy, and who is already on the floor with the puppy before the sentence has finished. I cannot explain it. I have stopped trying.

The session went well. I did overdo it, slightly. I had a great deal of fun. These three things are not unrelated.

Tonight will be spent in intensive rehabilitation, working on the leg in the hope that it cooperates through to Friday without further complaint. A reasonable ambition. We will see.

All in all — another good day. The road keeps bending in directions that couldn't have been predicted, and no two days have ever looked quite the same. At this point, I would not have it any other way.