A Walk On the Wild Side
My pal W. wants to take a walk on the wild side. No, it’s not like it sounds. He wants to take a walk through his established trail through the woods surrounding the Northeast sector of Vienna, that he turned me onto in January, this afternoon — in 50 mph winds.
I find it nearly impossible to turn such a request down. Especially since our schedules haven’t allowed a repeat walk since our first three, during that first week of walks together. I often get a text from him, “Going out in five — you around?”, only, I’m usually downtown when I get it, sometimes on my own walk around the DC Mall.
He just called me after I began writing this piece — “You still good for 4:30?”
“Let’s make it 4:15 — I have a 6:00 call I need to get back for.”
“It’s going to be pretty wild out there.”
“Be sure to bring protective headgear.”
“For what?”
“Oh, you know, a little padding to protect from flying branches and what-not.”
“Oh — yeah. Good idea.”
We walked so much that first week, I still have a sore right knee from it. I think I got a slight sprain, that I’ve been treating ever since.
It’s much like the sprain I suffered about seven years ago, when I slipped and fell on a patch of ice during a late March freak snowfall. It was just bad enough that I had to wear a brace on it, but not too bad to play softball on. I proceeded to go out and have my most productive season at the plate, hitting for my highest lifetime average, and leading the team in doubles and triples.
The adrenaline of the live game action masked any pain I might have felt, but the day after the games were absolutely brutal. As soon as I slowed down, post-game, the joint would stiffen up, and any movement of it hurt. Since I continued to play on it, six to eight games a week worth of playing, from April through October that year, it never got a chance to heal. I wouldn’t sit myself down to give it a break, because I was having the season of my career.
You play too long, work too hard, for a season like that. It might never come again. When you’re in it, you play. You exult in the momentary glory of it, willing to pay whatever price you need to pay to keep it going. Looking back on it, seven years hence, I remember the glory a lot more than I remember the pain. I wouldn’t have done it any differently. The knee did heal up in the off-season, when I finally gave it the rest it needed.
So, what’s my excuse now? I have an 11,000 step a day average going, since mid-November, and I want to keep it going. This doesn’t punish the joint nearly as much as the hard playing I did on it when playing competitive softball.
I was primarily playing third base that season, and simply killing it down at the Hot Corner. Nary a hard grounder or line shot down the line eluded my Hoover of a glove that season, I was completely dialed into the moment down there. That, on top of all those doubles and triples, did not do any favors for that knee.
I know I should take it easy and let this thing heal — but W wants to take a walk on the wild side, and I simply can’t find it in me to say no. I have an average to maintain, and a walk to take that I might remember 7 years from now, when the memory of this knee pain will be long gone.
Walk on.
