Feb 17th 2024. 3 min read
author at Aolori Spring Rrsort, Dec 2025
I haven’t hit a low in my life for a long time. My recent incident in which I fell after skiing and looking at the wonderful nature around me caught me off guard.
So enamored with God’s creation which had me entangled over my skis as I tumbled while standing still, caused a meniscus and ligament tear in my right knee.
One reason was that I rarely fall and I don’t remember any of my past coaches ever taught me how to fall.
One more reason could be the skis and boots were old and they did not dislodge easily to free the legs.
Otherwise, I am quite a careful basic skier enjoying the sport and its seasons for the last ten years.
There is a saying that. “You can’t really understand another person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.”
Now, with my right knee wrapped in the latest support, taking painkillers and going for physiotherapy is a new life experience for an active senior like me.
I realized that every part of our body is so important and not to be taken for granted. Any activity has risk but that does not mean one should not do it but rather be aware and be trained for it.
The beginning of a new emotional experience started when you received comments that neither soothed nor angered you.
On my way to work, there were questions as to ‘ What happened?’ ‘You shouldn’t be doing this at your age’ and ‘Poor thing!’ ‘I told you so!’
You feel a gnawing ache that woke you up in the night.
You go at snail pace to do tasks that you usually could complete fast.
The. time taken to reach recovery would be months away.
Most important, I learned to be more patient with people who are physically challenged.
What is one to do? Best choice is to stay optimistic. So what good can come out of staying glum and gloomy?
You learned to lick your wounds since no one could really help you.
In the weeks ahead, I have been building stronger upper body strength and other parts of the body that do not strain my right knee further. It feels good that if I slide to the ground, I can still get up with one knee and with my stronger arms.
I took out my best clothes and bought elegant knee supports – could I possibly be setting a new trend? Stand in a more stylish manner with my equally stylish colourful walking stick? One must not be defeated by any event.
The injury was good for me. Now I would stand in the sun for 20 mins with my back to the sun instead of worrying about being wrinkled. I am getting my priorities right for my bones.
While Standing in the garden basking, I started to notice the beautiful creeper plants along the ground and climbers on the walls of the house. I appreciate my spouse’s green fingers and passion for nature.
The Buddha statues bought and displayed by him and there are many being positioned in the garden, in different poses, a symbol of serenity, detachment and wisdom.
My husband admires Buddha for his benevolence, peace. and intellect and strive to think like him though the closest he gets to being a Buddha so far is his belly.
Nevertheless, they are precious and inspiring to behold from his wise collections.
He says I do stupid things like going skiing but I know it wasn’t the skiing per se. It was the lack of focus at the point of standing aimlessly in the flat snow instead of getting off the skis. And failure to learn how to fall.
Given the state I am in now, I am still filled with pride for my attempt to do something most of my peers would not do.
I have experienced the exhilarating cold and the coolness of the sport.
I know I will eventually heal anyway.
Meanwhile, my spirit is upbeat, writing this article about my fiasco to medium, mull over my mistakes and overcome my fear one more time, next time, with wisdom, awareness and training.
Well done, a good postmortem analysis of an incident that was not expected to occur
on a very safe ground. The truth is danger lurks in the safest of places because our attention is diverted and one becomes complacent and fail to practise due diligence.
Ironically, ii is in a risky or dangerous situation, that we take max precautions to protect ourselves as we focus our attention on all details , to do everything that’s required to keep us safe.
No need to bask in the hot sun to increase your vitamin D intake, it’s your knee ligament and meniscus that are injured, not your bones which remain strong and intact.
While we admire buddha to attain his peace of mind by sitting still under a bodi tree to tame his unwanted thoughts and restless mind , caused by the ceaseless firing of his brain neurons, commonsense teaches us there is limit to our understanding of everything around us with our 5 senses, although we may occasionally peek into the unknown by our
intuition and ESP.
Even within our body processes many things are beyond our control, including peristalsis and the heart beating , we only have limited control as to conscious choices we can make.
So this is the reality of life we just have to accept, we are no different from the tree and the stars and everything is either an animate or inanimate object, but humans and animals are sentient beings. That which we cannot understand , we accept it by faith and belief.