working through it

Twelve days ago now since breaking my wrist. Got into a fight with myself and in a fit of rage hit something that was a lot more solid than my fist. Didn’t need to get an x Ray, after 37 years of skateboarding (started at age 8) and my adolescent years full of drunken party stunts, the hairline fracture pain is very familiar. It’s not extremely painful until you move in the wrong direction or try to put weight on it, then your body tells you to stop. Once worked an entire shift as a busboy at a restaurant on a broken ankle, that was the beginning of teaching myself healing on the go. The breath and the mind are what heals the body. You can still breathe sitting and resting, but it’s not for me. Casts are too limiting. It’s understandable, to want to protect the fracture by immobilizing the area in order for it to heal. But the process is slower, and the muscles deteriorate. This way, my way, is the way of the jungle. Nature isn’t going to stop for me, and comfort is dangerous. Also, being a single full time father of a twelve and a fourteen year old and having a cat and a dog in my care, over $3000 a month in bills and a desire to be useful gets in the way of being stationary.

In reality, the pain tells your body exactly what movements and activities you can and can’t do, and which ones you have to improvise and adjust a little. “Switch stance” is a term used in skateboarding to describe the action of doing a trick with your feet in the opposite position that is natural for you, whether that is right or left foot forward. And working as a carpenter and handyman this is the hand work equivalent of skateboarding switchstance. Its interesting to find out how little my left hand can actually do. Using a saw or a screw gun with my left sounds easy until it’s something that matters to someone who is paying me for the work. This whole thing is teaching me so much. Using my body differently is forcing me to think differently (like starting this journal), especially when it comes to patience. Won’t be punching any walls for a while, that’s for sure!