After not playing hockey all of last season, barely
playing at all for the three before that, I pulled out my goalie gear last fall
and started playing a few times a week. Three to be exact. I was out of shape,
my legs felt like jelly after about 15 minutes that first ice time, but I
remembered how much I love playing the first time the puck ended up in my glove.
Shocker., I know. That’s how it is when you love
something.
I played this morning and, about 65 minutes into our
90-minute slot, a guy tried to jump over me in the crease as I was sprawling,
and caught me in the back with the toe of his skate as he vaulted over me.
Hard. Not with the blade, thankfully, but still. Goalie gear is amazingly
protective on the front, but there isn’t much going on in the back. It felt a
bit like I imagine getting hit with a bat might feel like. I think it’s just a
really deep tissue and bone bruise. Probably. I’ll know better tomorrow.
That’s not the point, but it got me thinking. Even
though the hockey I play is non-contact, there’s still plenty of contact. The
vast majority of it just isn’t intentional, like getting kicked in the back
with the hard toe of a skate, but it’s a fast game played on a fast surface,
and shit happens. And we all acknowledge that as a completely acceptable risk.
For me, hockey, and the odd sprain or bruise or
contusion I pick up playing it, are worth it because the game is worth it.
Playing is a privilege, so if it hurts once and a while, so be it.
People get hurt all the time. Also, I’m not talking
about hockey anymore. Sometimes we react by shutting down, sometimes we just
embrace it, most often we learn some measure of tentativeness to try to mitigate
the risk in the future.
Maybe, probably, absolutely, there’s a place for the
protective measures. They give us a chance to heal, to get our breath back. And
then they have to – have to – come down. Or we stagnate, atrophy, and it can
get easy to stay hiding behind the armor we put up and never take the risks
that can hurt us. You know, those ones that also result in the greatest moments
of pure epiphany we’ll ever experience.
In climbing, to get past a certain point of proficiency,
you have to go out and learn how to fall. Literally. You go find a nice climb, preferably
fully vertical or overhanging, and you get your belayer comfortable, and climb
to a certain point. And then you let go. You learn to trust the rope. More, you
learn to trust yourself. You learn how to push off a bit when the fall is
inevitable and land like a cat when the rope catches you and swings you back
towards the wall. You develop the skill of falling so that, when it happens and
it’s not planned, you have a better chance of not getting hurt.
But you don’t stop climbing. You mitigate the risk,
evaluate it, understand it and how you feel about it, and then you
intentionally push the boundaries and risk getting hurt again. Or you might as
well stop climbing.
I don’t know whether I bruised or separated or
cracked a rib today. Not yet. But I know that I finished the last 25 minutes. And
I know that I’ll be back on Friday. I love it too much to not risk again. Just
like climbing.
I don’t know why that concept is easier for me to
understand when it comes to sport than it was when I broke my heart, but it is.
Eventually my broken heart healed, but I left the
cast on too long and kind of forgot how to use it for a while. And then, last
fall, I took a risk and removed the barriers. Actually, I’m probably still
pulling the remnants of the wall down, and might be for a while, but demolition
is absolutely ongoing and completion is inevitable. Love is worth the risks,
even if it hurts at some point. Even if something breaks.
See? Hockey isn’t useless.
P.S. Some politicians are all idiots…
P.S. Deux: Also, this song is awesome: (the official video is also cool, but embedding is disabled...)
Have a smokin’ hot day, okay?
