I might be living for summer this year more than ever.
This is partly because winter — officially canceled by the spring equinox last month yet still alive in practice — has provided an endless stream of false seasonal dawns.
Just as compelling, the summer solstice in June is about the time I expect the broken bone in my left leg to have healed so that I can resume my summer ways and start fishing in earnest.
My fibula succumbed to what I’ve proclaimed the GOAT of stupid injuries. We got one last March snowstorm, and I was a little lazy about shoveling the driveway. This time of year snow rarely lasts, I told myself.
True, but sometimes it turns from snow to water to ice, instead of just going away as I’d hoped. I was a little too casual the following morning as I scraped the windows and didn’t notice a patch of glassy ice as I walked around the bed of the truck. I hit it and felt that terrifying sensation you get when your feet skate out from under you in a total free fall.
Mid-fall my shoe regained its purchase on dry concrete, though too late to save my destiny with destruction. I couldn’t prevent either the fall nor my ankle bending in a direction it isn’t designed to bend.
I knew it was bad before I made contact.
I suppose the one good outcome is that my battered ankle may have prevented an even more violent collision between the concrete and the back of my head. Despite my worthy efforts to build a layer of padding in the seat area that I hope will take the brunt of the impact when I make an unscheduled visit to the horizontal position, it’s the head that usually gets clobbered.
I once had a similar fall when my Kalispell backyard had frozen into a fine skating rink. As I shuffled out to my truck my feet suddenly flew forward while my head fell back toward the frozen ground. I remember thinking on my way down that a concussion seemed the most probable outcome. I thumped my head pretty hard, but not as hard as I’d expected.
I made it to work that day just fine.
I didn’t make it to work after this most recent fall. Not for a week, actually, though fortunately, my primary job as a college professor allowed an easy conversion to online instruction for a week so I could have surgery and then regain enough function to return to the classroom.
I’m now lecturing with the aid of a knee scooter. Before my injury, I was prone to pacing about the classroom. Now I scoot about. The other day I used my scooter to dramatically recreate the spinning space station in The Blue Danube Waltz sequence of “2001: A Space Odyssey” so I must be adapting.
My students, on the other hand, are convinced I’m taking too many pain meds.
In any event, I can’t put any weight on the leg for six weeks, and it will take another six weeks of rehab before I can expect to be able to trudge over the greased cobble of a proper trout stream. That timing might not be too bad, considering the snowpack across much of the West. If we have anything like a mild spring, it won’t be until the Fourth of July that Montana streams are finally falling into shape.
What’s almost certainly lost, for this season at least, is the spring carp fly fishing I’d intended for lakes and ponds while I waited out the snowmelt.
It’s also a bit of a reminder that we ought not to assume we’ll always be able to do the things we like to do outdoors.
So go today. That other thing can wait. Unless it’s shoveling snow from the driveway.
Get that done first.