Well that felt like 0-60.
Had a full day today. Was at school from 7:30am to 3:00pm. Taught two classes. Did some marking and then went to a meeting about Learning Spaces after school. The foot was feeling okay for most of the day. It was pretty swollen, but I tried to stay off of it as much as I could. It is amazing how far everything feels on crutches and how exhausting it can be just to get to lunch.
The killer was that we stayed after school until six pm to see Kaia’s recital, which was great and super worth it, but after a week and a half of bed-rest, a nearly twelve-hour day was pretty intense. My foot feels kind of numb right now with a strange prickling burning sensation on the top, but let’s pretend that is normal. I’ve got two classes early tomorrow, so I will go in and teach those, do some work on an assembly I am trying to organize for Thursday and maybe call it an early day tomorrow.
Everyone has been very kind and considerate and looks at me like I am crazy to be at school. “It looks so swollen.” They say and it is, but not as much as it has been. I need to be there. It is the last stretch and it feels okay to do what I am doing. It’s uncomfortable at the end of the day, but there are not many days left.
At one point tonight, after Kaia’s piece was over, we were sitting there listening to a few other students play their pieces and my mind began to drift. The drummers played along with a song track and one of my former students, who is in high school now, played Numb by Linkin Park, one of my favorite songs. He was nailing it and in some magical bizarre moment it all felt pretty transcendental.
My foot was throbbing and numb and ached from the long day. My mind was drifting and blank and utterly focused on the song and for a few disconnected seconds I felt fully alive and free. Yes, I was sitting there with a broken bone nearly two weeks after surgery, but I could feel it healing and the music told me that the future was just around the corner and that although someone said to me today in passing, only slightly joking, “Men your age shouldn’t be on skateboards,” I knew that she was wrong.
Men my age can and should do whatever we feel like. Sure we make mistakes and over-reach and hurt ourselves and ruin plans and make life difficult for those around us, but without taking these risks what are we doing? We cannot live our lives if we are always feeling the need to live a life that is overly cautious.
Enrico was pounding on the drums. Linkin Park was singing:
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there,
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you.
I am not sure who the "you" is at this point. Perhaps just a doubting voice in my head. I was tired and hurting, but I was alive damn it and fully aware of my existence, some say this is the path to nirvana. I don’t know about all that, for me it was the end of a long Tuesday in early December and I wasn’t feeling too sorry for myself. And that felt more right than anything has felt in a while.
Had a full day today. Was at school from 7:30am to 3:00pm. Taught two classes. Did some marking and then went to a meeting about Learning Spaces after school. The foot was feeling okay for most of the day. It was pretty swollen, but I tried to stay off of it as much as I could. It is amazing how far everything feels on crutches and how exhausting it can be just to get to lunch.
The killer was that we stayed after school until six pm to see Kaia’s recital, which was great and super worth it, but after a week and a half of bed-rest, a nearly twelve-hour day was pretty intense. My foot feels kind of numb right now with a strange prickling burning sensation on the top, but let’s pretend that is normal. I’ve got two classes early tomorrow, so I will go in and teach those, do some work on an assembly I am trying to organize for Thursday and maybe call it an early day tomorrow.
Everyone has been very kind and considerate and looks at me like I am crazy to be at school. “It looks so swollen.” They say and it is, but not as much as it has been. I need to be there. It is the last stretch and it feels okay to do what I am doing. It’s uncomfortable at the end of the day, but there are not many days left.
At one point tonight, after Kaia’s piece was over, we were sitting there listening to a few other students play their pieces and my mind began to drift. The drummers played along with a song track and one of my former students, who is in high school now, played Numb by Linkin Park, one of my favorite songs. He was nailing it and in some magical bizarre moment it all felt pretty transcendental.
My foot was throbbing and numb and ached from the long day. My mind was drifting and blank and utterly focused on the song and for a few disconnected seconds I felt fully alive and free. Yes, I was sitting there with a broken bone nearly two weeks after surgery, but I could feel it healing and the music told me that the future was just around the corner and that although someone said to me today in passing, only slightly joking, “Men your age shouldn’t be on skateboards,” I knew that she was wrong.
Men my age can and should do whatever we feel like. Sure we make mistakes and over-reach and hurt ourselves and ruin plans and make life difficult for those around us, but without taking these risks what are we doing? We cannot live our lives if we are always feeling the need to live a life that is overly cautious.
Enrico was pounding on the drums. Linkin Park was singing:
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there,
Become so tired, so much more aware
I'm becoming this, all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you.
I am not sure who the "you" is at this point. Perhaps just a doubting voice in my head. I was tired and hurting, but I was alive damn it and fully aware of my existence, some say this is the path to nirvana. I don’t know about all that, for me it was the end of a long Tuesday in early December and I wasn’t feeling too sorry for myself. And that felt more right than anything has felt in a while.
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