White Arches

Returning to sports after injury

Jan 16, 2024

in the morning i’ll be ten feet tall / solid gold / not sorry for anything —Nicola Maye Goldberg

I make my ascent up the wall, grasping the blue painted rocks. It’s Boxing Day, but my match is with gravity. I get halfway up. The next hold is high above me and far to the left. Reaching for it, I almost lose my grip. I look down.

I’ve had injuries, ones that widened the distance between my couch and bed by an extra mile. They left me heaving over the weight of a milk carton, unable to carry even a small purse. I’ve stepped, in a moment of arrogance, off a curb and spent the rest of the day writhing. I tell you this because I didn’t reach for that bright blue rock.

I watched someone else after me easily grab it. The rocks, marked “LB” for Level Beginner, were a preliminary even to Level 0. They didn’t humble me. This is what injury does: it holds back the starting line, makes you a home in every doorway.

Across the gym, I studied the elegance of wall crawlers, their nimble brawls with gravity. A few climbers seemed untouched by certain forces, how they stood sometimes on nothing and walked over the indoor cliffs as if the world lay on its side, surrendering.

Some days into the new year, I return. The blue rock out of my reach is closer. I touch it, a mountain then. I thank each of my fingers.

Next, an archway of white rocks. The end, not at the top but in its descent. The test: how gracefully you will let yourself fall back to the floor. I begin up the arch with the wrong foot.

I’ve lost many lives but one, I gained back. A chiropractor, who once moved his fingers over my vertebrae like the keys of a splintered piano, looked at me the other day and saw song. He saw strength. I am taller now.

I switch my feet. I stand open to the mountain.