The thrill of the downhill
There’s a lot going on in the world, and I think we’re all coming to varying levels of terms with what the last few months have felt like, and varying levels of anxiety of what the next few will hold. It seems like the sourdough and toilet paper phase of this pandemic was ages ago, and I can’t even remember a single minute of June. Time has literally felt fluid, at times the weeks whizzing by faster than a comet that suddenly blessed our night sky with a dazzling, unexpected show. It seems like it has forced us all to slow down and just be here. Without the option of jetting off to whatever summer destination we had planned, we’ve had to make peace with summer right here and now. And what a summer it’s been, with glorious warm and humid days that have quenched our skin, with soft breezes blowing kisses onto our bare arms and playing with our hair.
With everything happening, one experience has been universal for most of us in Calgary: we are getting to know our backyard pretty well. For some of us that might mean more trips downtown and acting like a tourist in our city. For a lot of us, it’s been trips to the mountains every weekend and soaking up what nature has to offer. For me, it’s a sudden love for the Canadian outdoors that truly did not feel authentic in me until now: an abrupt desire to be hiking or biking in the mountains every single weekend. I was one of those people that wrote about how much I liked being the mountains on my LinkedIn bio, but only recently do I feel a genuine thrill when my breathing is heavy as I’m scrambling up the side of a cliff or my heart pounding as I’m breaking 50km/hr on my road bike between two giant mountain summits.
I recently broke my arm falling off my bike, and it’s felt like the longest few weeks of my life. As melodramatic as that may sound given everything going on in the world, it actually wasn’t because of the pain or the major inconvenience of my dominant arm being non-functional, but rather the most beautiful weeks of summer passing by me as I watched with my arm in a sling. Not being able to do any of the outdoorsy things I had suddenly developed a penchant for, I was honestly devastated.
And yet, while I know there are much more devastating things going around me, I’m coming to appreciate that the very fact that I am doing things that could result in a broken bone is, in itself, an accomplishment. Like many children of immigrants, I grew up quite sheltered, not being allowed to participate in extracurricular sports or physical activities that might result in injury. For me it was amplified growing up in the US without health insurance, with a real fear that I wouldn’t be able to get the treatment I needed if anything happened. So I watched my classmates over the years all show up in a cast of some kind, as if it was a rite of passage I couldn’t participate in. And here I am, at the ripe old age of 30, having broken my first bone and feeling a tiny bit proud.
Because doing things that could result in a broken bone requires not just health coverage, but a security of mind. A confidence that a broken bone wouldn’t put your child behind. A brazen spirit that understands that some activities are worth the risk of injury. An inclination for adventure, and all that it entails.
Finally, as an adult, living outside my parents’ home, making my own irresponsible decisions of biking too fast around a curve, I finally felt authentically Canadian in my love to the outdoors. A love so strong I would literally give up a limb for it.
A friend of mine once said that riding a bike is the most liberating thing you do as a child, because it’s the closest feeling you get to flying.
Damn right, I broke my arm. And I guess you could say it happened while I was flying.