My Cankle

I've said things like, "It reminds you that you're alive," and "Everybody should sprain their ankle at least once in their lives." I guess I stick by that claim: spraining your ankle is one of the most intense things a person can do, where "intense" means "overloaded with sense experience, in this case, pain."

Ankles may be evidence that a certain level of pain is built into the fabric of things. Ninety-eight percent of the time, ankles allow us to be dextrous and lithe, enable an incredible combination of power and grace on a beautifully willowy structure. Still, while there may have been no curbs in the Garden of Eden, there was uneven terrain. Where uneven terrain and ankles meet, sprains are sure to happen. Research shows that sprains happen at only a slightly higher rate in "athletes" than in other people. Okay, I made that up. Still, I do have anecdotal evidence: the same week I sprained my ankle playing pickup ball, my wife's coworker stepped missed a step in a dark garage to the same result. Sprains happen. To anyone.

But ankles sprains heal. This, too, may be evidence of creational design to sprained ankles: the wonder of how bodies repair themselves. I'm not sure what's been stretched or pulled, what's wrenched away from bone under the skin of mine. All I know is I've had one "cankle" for over a week now: the injury has accumulated fluid that reminds me to take it easy. Of course, as my physical therapist wife reminds me, I also want to get that swelling out of there if I want to return to normal function. This is a problem in my creational vision: who would've told Adam and Eve to "RICE" their ankles--Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate?

Well, what do you think they talked about with God on their walks through the garden? How the creation--including their bodies--worked.

Age also threatens to dampen my theory. I'm into this sprain a week and am frankly a bit worried about bounce-back. Of course, this, too, can be explained by the garden: I am, realistically, on the clock for this body, and so perhaps I'm mending slower. Still, I'm not willing to say our new bodies won't include the possibility of sprained ankles: they're too good in that creaturely sort of way. And I stick by my claim that they intensify life.

Here's how I know: over a week later, the moment it happens remains indelible in my mind. We were down by one at 10-9, meaning if they scored--game. My player, a good shooter, had the ball. Their post came out high for a ball screen. I trailed my player on the dribble, and my teammate slid into position to stop the drive momentarily while I could recover, meanwhile the screener was rolling toward the hoop. I jumped to try to block the inevitable pass and came down on my teammate's foot, forcing my ankle to ninety degrees. I felt the ankle bone hit the floor and an internal "pop" so famous to ankle sprains.

Maybe not the repeated slow-motion close-ups the camera loves to provide of twisted and broken leg injuries, but you get the picture.

Then--I'll admit it--I writhed in pain like I was dying. I laid there and beat the ground, bit my thumb, pounded the floor--all the unmanly things I could think of besides crying.

But I wasn't dying. In fact, according to my own personal ankle philosophy, I'd never been more alive, nor would my body let me forget it. So I laid there with my philosophy: "Everyone should sprain their ankle at least once in their lives"; "sprained ankles let you know you're alive."

I understand that there's something flawed about my logic; I understand that equating pain with being alive is somewhat of the logic of cutters. Still, I stick by the idea because of the wonder of creation, because the idea of escaping a painless universe into utter bliss seems more akin to nirvana than to something as real and intense as the fine-strong leg joint known as the ankle-bone. And even as I think of "perfected bodies," I'm nervous about our vision of them as floating through walls, of our tendency to see them as more disembodied than embodied. There's something wonderful and earthbound about how the ankle allows us to push off, to turn a corner, to leap however finitely, and, yes, even how it allows us to come up against boundaries. With ice on my ankle, I've been reminded of those boundaries now for the past week.

If that's what ankles and their spraining means--boundaries--then here's to boundaries.