Our boys love the new splash pad and skatepark that was built in our town this past summer.
At first, they ran through the water with abandon.
Then they upped their game and began using their scooters to race through the water.
Most recently, they’ve taken to racing through the water and then riding over to the skate park to brave new heights down which they ride their scooters.
And up until last week, I enjoyed finding a shade tree, breaking out a folding chair and a good book, and spending the hour both watching the boys and reading.
But… a familiar and rather powerful thing began stirring within me as I was watching them last weekend.
It’s the thing some feel when a song from senior year of high school cuts across the airwaves or when you smell the onions and garlic of a 5:32 pm kitchen.
It’s the thing some feel when they go to a game at Fenway or walk across a freshly mowed lawn or drive down the street where they first learned to bike.
What I felt was nostalgia - a word derived from the Greek nostos (‘return home’) and algos (‘pain’). Literally, it’s an ache to return home.
And as a freshly baked wave of its power flooded my senses last weekend, it drew forth a singularly potent idea: Why don’t I join my boys!?
“Boys!”
“Yeah, daddy?” they replied from the skatepark.
“What do you think if I bought some rollerblades so I could join you next time?”
I don’t know that they showed a lot of interest one way or another in my idea, but I was completely sold.
This is definitely what we are doing.
And we did it.
I bought rollerblades a day later so that I could glide the early 90s feel right back into my bones.
Cue “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors and throw me into a baggy tracksuit atop the rollerblades, and I assure you every ounce of early 90s glory would be radiating through me.
Glory, however, is not the word I would have used upon first rolling along in my new blades.
Fear. Weakness. And mild embarrassment. These were much more real.
I took it slow because, truly, I had not recalled how fast rollerblades really do, in fact, roll. Like Crisco on wheels.
I survived my first outing with no real issues, though I was forced to acknowledge that even nostalgia is not powerful enough to wave away the throbbing pain of imperfect arch support. Superfeet inserts would be part of my second blade outing.
Which, it turned out, was the outing where it happened…
Though securely resting in the fresh comfort of Superfeet inserts, I was nevertheless all of 30 seconds into rollerblading slowly along a perfectly flat surface when I felt myself tip slightly off-balance.
And then - like a slow-motion movie scene - my body gently flailed around trying to find balance. And I found it!
Then I lost it.
And then one of those Crisco wheels suddenly rolled out swiftly from under me, and I went flying down to the sidewalk and landed directly on my right wrist. Electric pain shot through my elbow.
Gonna feel that in the morning! I cried in a very high-pitched, Chandler Bing-like voice within my head (nostalgia will even send you the old sitcoms for your frame of reference).
But also, I played it super cool.
Kids might see.
Adults might see.
Dozens of folks, really, were all over the area.
And so I bladed on.
But within five minutes I was seated, gingerly taking off my rollerblades, and becoming fairly concerned about the pain.
Within ten minutes I was worried I would not be able to drive home as my arm continued to tighten significantly.
“Boys,” I called out. “Three-minute warning. We gotta get back to the house!”
I was still holding out hope that it was just a bad sprain until we got in the car, and I couldn’t grip the gear shift to move it into drive. I had to use my left hand to make that happen.
An hour later I was at an Urgent Care, wincing as my left hand pulled my right arm onto the x-ray machine table and gaining full clarity that my next couple of months were about to change, perhaps radically.
“Whoa, I thought you’d be a teenager,” the ER doc as he arrived to the room a few minutes later and observed my newly wrapped-and-immobilized right elbow, arm, and wrist
“Front desk said it was a skate park accident so…” he trailed off knowing his cheery observation might be salt-upon-shame.
Eventually he continued, “Look, it’s gonna be six weeks. Obviously I’m not an ortho doc - and you’re gonna need to see one for the final word. But my guess is they’ll put you in a hard cast for six weeks.”
I tried to coach myself briefly. How is this challenge a gift?
Didn’t work. Not then, at least.
Mainly, I just felt embarrassed. And frustrated. And sad.
I began to tally all the things I’d need to stop doing, alter, or put up with for the next few weeks. None of it even remotely compared to the many ills, injuries, and anxieties faced by many in this world - and even so, it weighed on me.
Amidst my sulking, I forwarded the x-ray images to my best friend from back in the 90s - he’s now an orthopedic surgeon. Within minutes, he was in touch with a couple of comments.
The next day we chatted on the phone.
“Clean, hairline break, man,” he said. “Elbow is going to heal fine. Don’t let anybody put you in a cast. It can be really hard to regain elbow motion if it’s without motion for six weeks.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“So…,” I went on. “This wrap is not going to last much longer. What am I going to do?”
“If I were you I’d take the wrap off entirely and make sure you keep working your elbow, arm, and wrist motion as you work through the pain,” he continued.
Obviously, he added key advice about seeing an orthpedic doctor in the area, not carrying any weight in my right hand for a few weeks, and making sure I get a second set of x-rays a few weeks later to ensure everything has healed properly.
But, the key thing he invited based on his training, experience, and expertise was this: “Bobby, yes, you can move forward without a cast.”
And I felt 100 pounds lighter.
—
The next day I took off my wrap. That evening I signed a bunch of books at my Small Stories about Big Things launch event.
Yes, through some pain.
But also - I could do it!
In fact, the only reason I was able to type this story was because there was not a cast covering my entire right hand. And I’m quite grateful - because I love writing.
It makes me feel at home, and it doesn’t require me to reach back into a past I’ll never recapture.
—
And maybe this is part of the art of life - learning to embrace-and-enjoy the various versions of ‘home’ given us in each season.
In one season it’s rollerblades.
In another it’s a rock band.
In yet another it’s a weekly Substack.
Maybe sometimes we can reach back and enjoy old versions of home.
A favorite recipe.
An old stomping ground.
The band getting back together.
But it’s never quite the same, is it?
Subtle or strong, always there is a pain that accompanies the times when we reach back for older versions of home - for they can never be precisely the same way we remember.
Except…
Except perhaps for some of our deepest friendships. No, not always or in every instance.
At the same time, it would be difficult to explain how good it felt to make a call to a lifelong friend, get his advice, catch up on kids-and-life, and experience a conversation roll along like we didn’t live 1700 miles apart and only see one another maybe every couple of years or so.
Crisco friendship.
And sometimes it takes a break to remember there are a few sacred gifts that don’t break.
Or, if we’re lucky, we don’t wait for the break.
We…
Make the call.
Write the letter.
Send the text.
Buy the gift.
Share the meal.
Plan the visit.
After all, life rolls along a lot faster than we sometimes think to remember.
—
NOTE: The Small Stories about Big Things book arrives to Amazon on October 1 at 7 pm CST (a slight delay from the original publishing date, but it’s still soon!)
Excellent. Many congratulations on an excellent reading and book signing.
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
-Hemingway, because of course.
#startwiththebreak
I so enjoyed this one. It is hard to go back, but the future offers so much, we only have to look for it.