Wednesday 25 July 2012

Learning to Draw Out the Truth About My Knee

I tried all of the following:
It was a knee-on-knee at the blueline. Thinking he'd dump the puck in, I took off after it. He didn't. To avoid the offside, I reached back with my right leg. At that point somebody hit me knee on knee and I went down. It hurt. I left the ice. That may have been the last time I laced the pads on. For sure it was that day.
But that was five years ago. I ran a half-marathon since then. (A moment of declaration: I run a little faster, not much, than I draw.)
A colleague told me about the spirit of the knee according to certain medical traditions. Its moods/prospects/faiths, in other words. What it's hungry for.
I drew the knee. The drawing, now that I think about it, was as bad as the knee. Any retrospective (Early Drawings) might have to skip this one. The right leg was meant to be extended, resting on a chair, from a pair of dark shorts. We looked down as if from our own eyes. What I see now, however, is a vague curvy form extending straight up from what looks like a flower pot. A mortar and pestle?
I don't know what else might explain the torn meniscus. I felt it at the end of curling season. But how could curling cause it. First treadmill then elliptical sessions, over a period of two and a half months, had to be scaled down then cut altogether. Once I got the ipod and programmed a workout playlist, I must have upped the pressure--bopping along as I had to--on the torn part of the knee. Haven't been to the gym since. That was about two weeks ago.
It couldn't have anything to do with the way I'm sitting right now, ankles crossed, toes against the wall.
My thought had been that the knee, misshapen as it is, might come out all right in my drawing, misshapen as it would certainly be.
I don't put down my own drawings to evoke your sympathy. And there will be a retrospective, with guest curators introducing the drawings--so goes an idea I just had.
Now the knee says it looks like rain. That's what the clouds look like: knees. With space in them, and fluids.

4 comments:

Brenda Schmidt said...

Careful with that flower pot!

Gerald Hill said...

My next policy is to be more aggresive with my knee. Also more careful.

J Thue said...

"The drawing, now that I think about it, was as bad as the knee." Love it.

Gerald Hill said...

Difference is, the knee can be fixed.