Ka Slow

On the twenty-seventh of January in 2005, as a city worker, I was working on Mayor Magrath Drive in Lethbridge. My task was to hold back traffic. I stepped off the curb with the stop sign in my hand and found myself a hood ornament for a mini-van. I could feel my legs going under the front of the vehicle, but I managed to roll up onto the hood. There, I saw a young driver's face still looking onto the road. I watched the shock hit his face when he turned to see me on his vehicle. He slammed on his brakes; I tumbled onto the pavement.

As my co-workers checked on me, he drove away.

A sharp pain shot through my right knee. An MRI would later reveal a torn cartilage; surgery would reveal two tears in addition to arthritis and other problems.  June surgery required ten weeks recovery time—ten weeks away from work.

Four weeks into my recovery period, friends and neighbours began telling me that they noticed a difference in me. Outwardly, I was speaking and acting more calmly; inwardly, I felt a deeper healing. I had discovered that just by being away from work, I was in an environment that would heal me inside. I had to be away from the work environment to learn how stressful it was.

I have come to realize that society and the setup of our working system has a design that ensures as few of us as possible will live to collect our old-age pensions. By conforming to the "ways of the world", I was killing myself just as if I was ingesting arsenic. It is unfortunate that a drastic accident would wake me up.

Earlier, my future plans were for me to work in what my department calls "the Oval Office".  There, at the age of sixty, I planned to work as the Electrical Superintendent — the ultimate measure of my working success — the position to cap my working career.  I am more ready to see the realities and price of that position now.  People in that position have been known to be hospitalized with stress-related problems.

As I recouped from my accident, my workplace progressed without me.  A construction project at the electrical department started. So, things were not the same when I went back to work. Four days after returning to work, I felt the effects of the changes. 

For twenty years, I typically rode my mountain bike to work.  My knee had healed sufficiently, and I was anxious to continue that healthy routine.  So, I rode my bike to work, once again.  My arrival route was not so usual though. The construction diverted my route; I had to enter through a different door than I was used to.  Something was amiss, for fifty feet from the door, I ended up flipping over the handle bars and landing on my face!

I was knocked out; I suffered major contusions and abrasions, had fourteen stitches on the right side of my face near my eye, dislocated my jaw, and knocked out a tooth. Click here to view photos by Paul Atrell

I started off just trying to laugh through the pain. I've been a few weeks healing and am still in the process. As part of the healing process, I found myself, once again, away from work. During this recuperation period, I went to the interior of B.C. for two weeks.  I visited Kaslo, Nakusp, Ainsworth Hot Springs, Rossland — I put myself in touch with nature, once again.  In the process, I am able to see a larger picture.  If man didn't feel the need to, as Joni Mitchell said years ago, "Pause Paradise and put up a parking lot.", my injuries wouldn't have been so severe. If my injuries had not been so profound as to knock me out, I would likely not have had such a new awakening.

We all need to slow down. "Ka slow," as one friend (from Kaslo) reminds me. If our society doesn't slow down, we won't need to concern ourselves with diseases like the avian flu for we are already slowly killing ourselves with stress.  Stress, researchers tell us, affects us at the DNA level. As a society, and more particularly as individuals, we need to take responsibility for ourselves, our families and our friends. It is time to re-educate ourselves and each other as to the importance of old-fashioned "R and R". A sign on a wall in Kaslo reads:

There's a certain beauty in doing nothing at all,
then in resting afterwards.

I've written this into my life and put the words around me.  I am now sharing them with you. I'm making the pledge to myself. to adapt and abide by this philosophy before I do kill myself. I invite the universe to do the same.

If you want to find me some time in the future, look for me at a summer cottage in the interior of B.C. where my mind, spirit and body can be at peace.

Namasté!