Voboril: Forced respite
Inevitability is a beguiling solace, up until the eventuality transpires and one is left wishing that the inevitable outcome had been delayed. Time being elastic, surely that compression could have waited in hiding for a few more decades before it claimed my ski and sent me sprawling into a yard sale. Active on bikes and skis and trails for more than three hundred and forty days a year, I have long known that the simple intersection of physics and chance would again conspire against my bodily sanctity. As I sat awaiting an X-ray, I had not yet attained a contemporaneous acceptance of that fact. Given the circumstances, and despite the pain, I was elated that the injury was relatively minor – I just needed to sit still and rest for a while.
That prognosis made my friends and family chortle — I would rather Sisyphus a boulder than be on the couch, especially in winter, especially when it was starting to snow more than zero millimeters. And yet I was not distraught over this minor convalescence, to my surprise above all. Since, like most Valley denizens, I am constantly speeding a mere atom’s width from immovable objects, I felt immense gratitude that I was not in traction. My foreknowledge of this situation had also prepped my mind. Most people train by visualizing their performance, but I needed to imagine myself in recovery to smooth the transition from spry to sedentary.
Even though I typically have a well-rounded life, when the snow starts falling, skiing tends to dominate the pie chart of my existence. After dreaming of deep pow turns, my waking thought is the morning’s rip, which sticks in my memory the day long until I drift back to sleep and the cycle repeats until June … or later. It is actually a helpful background for my other thoughts, prevents me from overanalyzing legal issues or overly fretting about parenting problems, allowing me to sleep restfully, at least for a man of middle age. Still, there is no doubt that there are molecules of obsession zipping around within me.
As a younger gent, I would have been losing my mind as I sat by the fire with an icepack strapped to my elevated right leg and flakes descending onto the deck outside. I appear to have matured somewhat. Instead of a coursing, constant mid-strength hum of restlessness, I have been blanketed by a warm feeling of zen, a peace that has traditionally been elusive. During the holidays, perhaps in precognition, I had populated lists of desired movies and books, which I have been consuming joyfully and with great appreciation. Instead of bouncing from one thing to the next, walking at the speed that many run, I am forced to move purposefully, with an awkward gait. Removing the rush from my physical movements has also slowed my brain. Rather than having to sift through a maelstrom of ideas, I can see each thought as its own constituent part, resulting in even more clarity and deeper consideration.
Physical activity is only one aspect of my holistic being — there is a deep intellectual vein that I am always mining, a motherlode of epiphanies and harebrained schemes alike. Relegated to minor movements, the hypothesizing, synthesizing, realizing mental activities have been a primary focus, allowing me to revisit notions that had lain dormant in my medium-term list of contemplations. For example, discouraged and distracted, I had ceased my rampant proselytizing about mediation, but a Google Meet check-in with a potential colleague, something that this respite allowed me to do, reinvigorated my passion. Stay tuned for the fruits of that collaboration.
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I have been bolstered by the well-wishes of my village — it never hurts to know that there are people about whom you care that also care about you. Above all, being forced into stasis has reset the balance to which I often give lip service, but very rarely achieve. Skiing, for all of the reasons, is a central organizing principle of my life, but is not what defines me. I am undoubtedly excited about again clicking into bindings, but I am not rushing back. There are adventures ahead that require my full strength and I am not about to make the adolescent decision to shirk a proper recuperation. Unlike our apparent collective amnesia about the lessons of COVID, I am not going to forget what I have learned these past weeks. Instead, I am going to take this time to absorb more, to grow, to sit, to engage, to be. It may not make me a better, stronger skier, but it will certainly make me a better person.
T.J. Voboril is a founding partner at Alpenglow Law, LLC, a local law firm, and the Owner/Mediator at Voice Of Reason Dispute Resolution. For more information, please contact Mr. Voboril at (970) 306-6456, tj@alpenglowlaw.com, or visit alpenglowlaw.com.
