My knee is being a jerk. To be fair though, I was the one who started it.
A few weeks ago, in an attempt to prove all Norwegians wrong about the geomorphology of Denmark, we drove out of the city to hike the 20km ‘Mountain‘ leg of the Mols Hiking Trail. It was a beautiful day, cold, clear and slippery and we kept laughing about how Norwegians would react if they heard these 600m of total elevation dispersed over 4 or 5 hills being described as ‘mountainous’. We heartily agreed that we had surely seen much worse in Norway, but that this little promenade would have to do as preparation for now.
Had it not been for my stubborn insisting, that by now I was surely ready to carry 8kg in my pack, we might even have gotten away with our hybris.
As it was, however, my right knee started whispering to me as we ascended the hill furthest from the car. I ignored it (what other choice did I have?) and 5 kms later it was no longer whispering, but shouting at me with every step. I laughed it off (mostly) and powered through, resembling a pirate on a wooden leg as I dragged my way back towards the car, Jonas right beside me, urging me to slow down. I speed up instead, insisting that the cold of standing still only made it worse – “What other choice do I have?”, I kept repeating.
Now, some of you might start to sense a reaction pattern here. A sort of power dynamic, if you will, between Jonas and I, where he is being very sensible and calm and I am insisting that nothing is wrong, until it really, really is. To that I can only say that you are delusional and I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Moving on.
When we got home my knee was so sore that I could hardly walk up the stairs to our apartment, and I started looking up knee surgeries and leg amputations on the internet. Luckily, though, the pain had mostly subsided by next morning.
In other news, it didn’t take long for the Danish corona virus vaccination plan to fuck up in a very predictable manner. Friends keep asking us what we will do, if we don’t get to go this August. The answer, I think, is that we will go next spring. However, for now, despite everything, we are still hopeful that it might happen this year, and August is still what we are walking towards.
One of the dogmas of the Shikoku pilgrimage is that you should never complain, because the trail always gives you exactly what you need, when you need it. Religions are cleaver like that. I guess I needed a little knee pain to realise that powering through and being a jerk to myself is maybe not the best preparation strategy. After all, we’re in it for the long game.