“…there are indeed significant changes at the origin of the hamstrings with evidence of a proximal tendinopathy affecting semimembranosus portion principally, but also with significant corresponding bone oedema more marked on the left side than the right…”

The results came back and the findings, in all their somewhat complex-sounding content, sent my brain projecting forward on what I was going to do next. You know, to celebrate.

When we think about identity, we all keep mental lists for what we are, according to our distorted world vision. To everyone else, maybe someone’s a first class a-hole, but in their own brain, perhaps they see themselves as an initiative-taker and as such an important player on the world stage. Who knows. Me, I may well be a super jerk in the eyes of some, but when it comes to thinking about the things that form my identity, I’ve got other things terms that spring up first.

 

As a person, I very much identify with where I fall in my family’s pecking order, and on an equal level there’s the place where I’m from that counts for a whole lot too. But just as significant for me is my need to explore. Whether its going somewhere utilizing some mode of high speed transportation, or whether I’m on foot—either way I would be at a complete loss if I wasn’t out discovering something new each day.

 

The freedom to move is an absolute gift. The migrants who are desperately trying to cross continents is a testament of this, and the state of one’s own health is a more self-absorbed example. Please forgive me if I leave the larger problem off to the side for now, but the readout from my T3 MRI scan had me thrilled beyond measure that I’ve got no major damage going on in my lower extremities. I’m free once again to strike out at a pace a touch faster than a clop. Travel in my own way continues.

 

It’s the day after April first, and back home people are swapping fatigue for steely determination in the face of New England’s last notable snowstorm of this winter (or so we hope). Here in London, it feels downright tropical with another weekend of clear blue skies and magnolias moving just past their peak bloom point. If I have a decently clean bill of musculoskeletal health, then there was no way that I’d pass up a longish run on an early morning where there’s no sleet or snow.

 

When the Senegalese used to ask me, “tu fais l’église?”, I would reply by saying that my Sunday worship was on the corniche. The corniche in Dakar is really the center of all things sport, and I never needed to say anything more for the incredibly fit people of my community to understand. Today is Sunday, and if my body is more or less able to tolerate things, then I will endeavor to conduct the same kind of worship. The mind-body balance is just too important.

 

As is usually my custom, I always have to stop and take photographs along the way. I’m positive that everything passing my field of view is stored in my brain as some form of low-quality pictograph, but decades of experience tells me that most of what I record scatters and ultimately accumulates into the feelings that I have for a place. And so, if I ever become motivated to properly card catalog my blog entries, some day I will come back to the photos I have posted and feel validated about what I recall from that one day. The views were really as magnificent as I remembered.

 

London is really great about furnishing green space for its massive population, and there is no better time to explore it than now. I know that wherever you happen to be reading this, you’ve got your own sequence of rebirth out on display that is providing your brain a nudge of reassurance that the earth is waking up. And if you are one of my New England faithful, then I indeed hope the dogwoods start blooming just in time for the Bruins to be squeaking into the postseason. Alas, not everything is promised.

 

I’ll say it again a bit differently: I love the nature that you can access here in The Big Smoke. From the mammoth trees lining the streets of my borough to the smaller herds of daffodils that are currently challenging the city’s dusky red facades, if you make a bit of effort to look around you can really change parameters of your daily color wheel.

On days like today, with the sky providing such a striking contrast, I feel as though I might could live here forever— if only the sea were minutes from my doorstep. But then too many of the days resemble the crappiest of black and white photographs that I used to develop in my darkroom—and I remember that my psyche will appreciate London as only a stopping point. I’m not trying to be impolite, it just doesn’t exactly fit in with my own particular idiom.

So on this morning I completed the longest run that I’ve attempted in nearly a year. And it’s not even that long, considering that my buddy Drew is out right now on a 4 hour run because he is more insane than most people. But over the past few months with my running at an All Stop, I had begun to despair a bit. If I had really torn up my hamstrings, how on earth was I going to live my life if I couldn’t call myself a runner?  The thought of no longer being able to speed through glorious and sun-splashed parks on my weekends seemed downright depressing. And as of yet I hadn’t found a suitable replacement.

But as it turns out, I’m not quite there yet. I know that there will one day come a time where a leg falls off and I will be truly forced to refine the fundamentals of my identity. Maybe tai chi will finally be attempted, or some other form of meditative physical practice that will keep my brain on the positive side of peace. The way running does it for me now.

But I’m not completely broken yet, and there’s still loads of sunshine yet to behold today. I’m thinking that I need to head back outdoors again and go for a bit of a walk. Or hobble, considering that I’m a bit sore after sitting around for a few hours. But off I go, because this place has got so much more to discover. The clock on quality time is ticking.