The Narrow Path

Two weeks to go. 8.25 miles. An 11:42/mile pace.

And one near-disaster.

On Saturday, my wife and I were moving a little slower. Around 1:30 am the night before, one of our bed risers failed spectacularly, and after several minutes of searching, we discovered didn’t have a spare. And so, our bed tilted perilously at the northwest corner, we ended up divided onto our couches, consigned to fitful sleeps broken up by longing dreams of our soft, comfortable, and now askew bed.

So it was that we got something of a late start on our Saturday plans, which were literally just to go on a long training run before sitting and doing as little as possible. By the time we left the house around 10:30 am, the temperature had risen to a comfortable mid-50s, the farmer’s market down the street was in full swing, and the sky had shifted from mostly cloudy to full sunshine. 

It was lovely weather for running, which also meant we weren’t going to be the only ones out on the Schuylkill River Trail. The path was packed, especially around the Center City bridges, although the crowds ebbed a bit between there and the Philadelphia Museum of Art and past Boathouse Row. Even with the crowds, the glorious weather and my motivation to have as good a run as possible made the run extremely pleasant—at least until mile six.

As the mile tracker on my phone flipped over from 5.99, my right foot slipped off the edge of the paved surface. I had been running close to the edge of the path for most of my run in an effort to let those moving faster than me (most people, that is) to pass without effort. For whatever reason, that step, the one that propelled me into my sixth mile, missed the mark. The sole of my right foot landed solidly on the steep slope of blacktop to the side of the path, which drove my body weight through my ankle, now positioned nearly perpendicular to my leg. 

I heard a snap. I felt a pang along the lateral side of my foot and ankle. I hopped to the side of the trail as I swore loudly, then threw my water bottle to the ground, where it skipped across the path in front of the walker who had been behind me, drawing an understandable glare. I retrieved my bottle, then walked gingerly to the concrete berm along the river. I flexed my foot, rolled my ankle, took several steps in the grass, and after several tense moments, let loose a nervous sigh of relief. 

I wasn’t sure I was okay. What I knew was that it didn’t hurt now, and while there might be damage to the joint, if I didn’t get going soon I might not be able to make it home at all. I got back on the path, restarted my tracking app, and continued my way towards my 8.25 mile goal. 

And that, as it turns out, was that.

I got lucky. For a moment there, I thought I’d made a colossal error. For the rest of my run, I kept thinking to myself how I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of steps in my training, taken millions of steps over the course of my time as a runner, and I’ve never turned an ankle like that before. How was it that now, barely two weeks before this upcoming race, is the first time I make that one misstep, that one potential error that could derail the whole thing? Why, of all the times and all the places, does it happen now?

There’s no rhyme or reason behind that misstep, of course. No one planned it. It wasn’t foretold in ancient texts. I didn’t set out that morning thinking, “This is the run where I try to break my ankle while I’m almost three miles away from home, just before a race I’m really looking forward to.” No one forced me to take that step, and no one had anything riding on the outcome. It was chance, pure and simple, just another one of those hundreds of thousands of steps, all of which have the potential to wreck my day, no more or less than any other step.

But it does put into relief one of the simple if frequently unacknowledged facts of human existence: we are all of us, for most of our lives, balancing at the edge of a cliff. We make countless choices every day, taking actions at every turn that are by and large mundane, but that, if they were to go wrong, could lead us over the edge and into crisis. It might only take one event, one misstep that may not even be of our own making, to make an absolute hash of our lives, and perhaps the lives of others. And the truth is almost all of us live closer to that edge that we care to admit.

I remember the day I first had the realization of just how perilous this life can be, not through some tragic or life-altering occurrence, but rather by following a line of thought to its logical conclusion.

My family was never in danger, not really. We had some challenges, like most families. My dad earned his bachelor’s degree from OSU while I was very young, diving into the life of a non-traditional student to graduate in four years while raising a two- to six-year-old while his wife worked at McDonald’s and scrimped and saved to make sure we made it through. Even after graduation, our family was never wealthy, and we felt even less comfortable compared to the excess of well-heeled Dublinites that surrounded us. But we were rich in spirit, and compared to the vast majority of the world, in money and possessions as well.

Still, there were moments that were tougher than others. When I was in middle school, my dad was laid off from his first job out of college, and he struggled to know what to do next. After a few weeks, one of the folks he’d met through his old job offered my dad a chance to come aboard his print shop as a marketing director, to see if it was a good fit. After a few months, he and his new boss decided the position was going to work out well for everyone, and he hired my dad on full time.

Unfortunately, my dad hadn’t realized during the trial period that he was working as a consultant, meaning an independent contractor. While the paycheck was good and kept us moving forward, the tax implications had not been made clear, and when April 15 rolled around the next year, we got hit hard. Taxes and penalties for not filing quarterly knocked us backwards, and we found ourselves scrambling. 

Being the person I am, I wanted to do whatever I could to make things easier on my parents. I never complained about our new meal plan, which incorporated more pasta and canned vegetables and less fish or beef. I didn’t complain about having to miss the 8^th grade trip to Washington, DC (and frankly I had a good time with the other kids who stayed behind as well). And I didn’t complain about potentially missing my Boy Scout troop’s trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Even that was too much for my parents, who told me that it was not, in fact, all right, and found a campership program that would fund my Philmont trip. Considering that’s where I learned about Drama Club and being in theatre, it’s fair to say that was a foundational trip. 

But even that experience taught me more about resilience than it did about the inherently precarious nature of the human condition. It wasn’t until the summer after I graduated college that I came around to that conclusion.

I can remember the exact moment very clearly. I was driving the old Dodge Spirit back from an orientation at Ohio State, headed towards my parents’ (and now my) house. My parents bought a house during my senior year at Wittenberg, and had moved from the rented townhouse we’d lived in for the previous 14 years into a much larger space. It was a nice house, and I was glad they were finally able to take the plunge on owning—although 2003 wasn’t exactly an auspicious time to buy, as we would later learn.

Turning the corner onto my parents’ street, I had a sudden flash: what would happen if my dad couldn’t work anymore? What if he fell and broke his back, or was in a car accident or had a heart attack? What would we do in that moment, to keep the house and the cars and essentially preserve our way of life? How shattering could something like that be? I had no reason to suspect that any of that would happen, but the suddenness of the inspiration made me say to myself, “We are all of us walking along a knife’s edge.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m prone to hyperbole. Probably the most prone to hyperbole in the history of the world.* The reality is that while a single misstep may have the potential to wreck your life, there are a host of reasons why for most of us that’s not the case, from strong social support networks to government programs designed to help backstop these catastrophes. And it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge the fact that the further you are above the poverty line, the less likely you are to be crippled by one bad happenstance.

* I once sat an exam as part of a competition in excellence in English, because I am a nerd and like taking tests and because Mrs. Vornbrock recognized and encouraged that fact. Afterwards, I sat outside the school in Worthington where the exam was being held and waited for my dad to pick me up. The girls behind me were discussing how difficult the test was, with one girl exclaiming indignantly, “What even IS hyperbole.” When she pronounced it “hyper-bowl,” I knew I had a good chance of placing well on that test.

But sometimes, it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes, the shit rolls downhill and all your efforts to get out of the way are in vain. The course of my mom’s recent health issues ultimately went about as well as could be hoped, in terms of avoiding serious financial problems for her or for me, and for that I’m grateful. But a series of other problems had occurred beforehand that led to her being in so secure a state. And if they hadn’t happened, if my mom had had her heart attack two years earlier before my dad passed, my family would have been knee-deep in shit, with few ways back to any kind of normal.

Believe it or not, this isn’t meant to be a downer of a post, although by this point I’d understand if you’ve stopped reading and went looking for something more cheerful, like a funeral or the season finale to Bluey.* I may sound like I’m bemoaning the fact that life is such a delicate balance between comfort and pain, between safety and utter ruin. Heck, at one point I thought I might actually be a nihilist. And no one wants that.

* I don’t watch Bluey, I just know it made people cry. Was it sad? It sounds like it was sad.

But I think what this post is really about is hope. 

We should of course look to our future. We should make plans for what’s coming down the road, looking to ensure our safety and security for both the near and distant futures. We would be incredibly irresponsible if we just left that to chance, assuming we’d have all we need next month/week/year/lifetime, as long as everything stays the same.

But we should also acknowledge that the future isn’t written, and that the only thing for certain in this life is uncertainty. Plan all you want, but things will happen. Obstacles arise, both from within and without, and we need to be able to adapt to those changes as they come. Strength isn’t the ability to force your way past obstacles, nor is it simply evading our way around them. True strength is the ability to take those obstacles and turn them into opportunities. Strength is finding ways to incorporate the challenges that we face, to transform setbacks into lessons or paths forward, paths that may be fundamentally different than we first intended but can offer us otherwise unimaginable vistas.

The upshot? If life isn’t written, if the outcome isn’t known, and if our path is sure to be replete with challenges anyway, then what’s the harm in taking a bigger shot? It’s a fool’s errand to expect our lives to be without difficulties. If we’re going to face risks in the course of our everyday lives anyway, then why shouldn’t we be more willing to take chances on our own terms?

As someone who’s especially risk-averse, I feel a little disingenuous saying this. At the same time, though, it’s something I want to believe. Taking risks means exposing yourself in some way. But as my therapist often asks me to consider, what’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen? What’s the most likely outcome? And most importantly, if I fail, will I die? 

Most times the outcome is somewhere in the middle, and that’s just fine. If you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll land among the stars, said someone with very little understanding of astrophysics. Still, the sentiment is true. Try and you just might succeed, even if success doesn’t end up meaning what you initially thought it would. The only sure way to fail is to do nothing at all. 

I’m not a Pollyanna about taking risks. Sometimes you end up way out over your laces, and when you fall, you fall hard. And like I said earlier, all of this comes with the caveat of privilege, of being far enough away from poverty or destitution that the fall will likely have a softer landing than I might otherwise expect.

Still, it’s worth adding all of this into the calculus of decision-making. It’ s so easy to think you’re staying safe by avoiding risks, by keeping yourself on the flat, safe ground rather than climbing out on a ledge to see what else might be within your reach. But if you consider where that supposedly safe path leads, if you lean just a little further over to one side, you might see the yawning chasm that’s already there, waiting for something or someone to nudge you just a little closer to the edge. If the safe path is already that close to a tremendous fall, then isn’t it worth taking charge of the situation? 

To me, a life-long safe path devotee, I think it just might be.