FALLING

Sitting on a cross-country flight, blown-up ankle continues to throb and expand, a painfully sweet reminder of commitment and resolve. Not of failed voyages, missed opportunities but of dusting yourself off from the lessons, hard lessons, and pushing on.

And so with the fall on the simplest of maneuvers while skating yesterday I just had to find a way to Lake Forest’s Etnies before today’s flight screaming through that wall in areas I’ve never hit. With an ankle double the size of normal, it made no medical sense at all but of course and I suspect I will hear a fair amount of flack over risking my future on “personal needs,” but “getting back-up” is what I do.

It’s what I’ve always done. It isn’t pretty and it sure isn’t glamorous but getting off the canvas from one of life’s surprise blind-side shots is what has defined what my life’s adventures have been about. The mountains I have climbed have come through the tough roads and I wouldn’t trade it for a bit. And so I climb…

My heroin of choice is that fine moment that seems to linger forever, an unforgettable, unrelenting moment of a taste of “air.” Like the split-second moment of the first kiss of the love of your life or that unforgettable wave you rode decades ago, that little piece in time stands still and flows through your veins with a mighty rush, addicting you to an unequalled drug. But to find that little euphoric spot you need to ball and jack straight towards taking in every last morsel of what life has to offer and fear nothing. And with each venture I’ve begun to realize that the conduit to this is letting go and accepting the taste of victory comes with the addiction to accept…

Falling. I tend to fall a great deal, and while finding new ways for my shoulder joints to grotesquely move, my ankles to twist and embellishing my hips with shades of 80s-esque purple and caviar black it pushes me further because I know one simple thing … and that one simple thing is when I get back up, I’m more confident and I can defeat the beast of fear within and take on that mountain, that hip, that wave, that challenge of what I want to be. I learn from my own mistakes, mistakes that while seemingly simple spring from the simple indecision of self-confidence, esteem and revitalize commitment. Of course, falling seems to be an odd addiction and in many ways the slow methadone of mainlining sweet air. But as you may already realize, this isn’t about hitting a jump while snowboarding or pushing deeper and higher into a pool’s walls because “falling” is equally a metaphor … a metaphor to rise up when life throws you another curve ball outta’ nowhere because victory is had simply by getting up and never being vanquished.

It was, what 6-8 weeks ago, when after slamming through a long sweet run at Mountain High with my cohort Doug McDaniel, i got ready to drop into a wooded gorge from a flat area. It’s a sick run that connects to some great hits but at that time of day the tree-line had cast a shadowy area that hid a deep rut which I “found” and was sent tumbling. One of those nasty unsightly tumbles that make you turn away with the right shoulder catching the impact of the fall for an unsightly shoulder separation -- this was a splat that bit back with some venom. Searing shoulder screaming back the point of decision was before me and so knowing only one direction to go … I rolled over, got up and headed down into the gorge, finishing the run and well … truth be told a few more runs that day because fear couldn’t defeat me.

Thus my addiction is complete and incurable. I’m going to fall in order to learn the lesson of flight but through the conduit to destroying the beast of fear. Falling isn’t so evil, it’s just “a thing.” I’ll get back-up, find that right line, the tight hit and take my shot.

It’s what I do because I’ll never be vanquished.