Imbalance
My feet move forward on a quiet trail on a day the world is on fire.
Outside the mouth of the canyon, smoke coats the throats of anyone who steps outside.
In the clearer air up here, one of the bits of tissue that makes my leg swing forward is very, very upset. Fiery, you might say.
As a wise body does, my movement pattern alters to avoid the hurt. I’m compensating: I haven’t run in three months, biking is coming to an end now too. My walking gait makes me lean to avoid unnecessary load on one little tendon.
First came disequilibrium,
then the compensation,
and then the consequence of the compensation.
Those tiny little changes aren’t obvious even to the full-time occupant of this body but muscles elsewhere complain just above a whisper - I bet you never knew I was here. They are correct.
There’s imbalance in my body: a torn muscle, an aggravated tendon. There’s imbalance in the environment outside: the wild, pervasive fires.
The systems are trying to realign,
true whether it’s an injured hamstring,
a historically dry year,
or a season of wildly unfulfilled expectations.