It seems coincidental, if not a little ironical, that following a cycling accident last Thursday and an operation yesterday at Gartnavel General for a 'nastily fractured left wrist' I should be talking about the mastery of movement. To be sure, I was going too fast, and having had my vision impaired by two large street-side portakabins, did not see the trailer that was being towed bt the SUV that pulled out of a side street in front of me.
It seems more than a little contradictory that I should also be writing a blog entitled The Slow Flow of Glasgow, when slowness was not exactly a part of this equation. Personally, I blame the wind. Glasgow can be a well windy city at times, and at this time of year, one almost feels like one might take off and end up in Oz. Like Glasgow's seagull population, I pride myself on my knowledge of the prevailing winds, and being able to accommodate them and synergize with them. This is all well and good, if like a seagull you have an ocean of space around you to play in, but Charing X where I had my accident (right outside the Q Club) with its car-filled streets and buildings is not exactly the great Atlantic.
And so perhaps the conclusion is that I have not mastered movement.... at least not yet. But I am on my way, that much is sure, and when at last mastery of movement is accomplished, mastery of everything else falls into place. There is a grace to moving thus, an elegance and natural economy which perhaps I overlooked in my moment of eagerness, in my moment of excessive ventilation. But as I said to the kind nurses who looked after me yesterday, 'I am alive' even though a little broken, which is a lot more than can be said for those who outsource their moving (physical and mental) to machines and screens.
No comments:
Post a Comment