I was cutting up a chunk of partially frozen meat a few weeks ago. I had to push really hard to force my knife blade all the way down through it. I remember choking up on the handle really far. In fact my index finger was curled across the back ridge of the stainless steel. It had scooted up past the fat round white plastic handle. I carved and sawed my way through, until the meat was diced. And inside my latex glove, I had worn a hole in my hand.

When I took off the glove, it looked real red and raw. I had been so vigorously slicing that I didn’t care about the little pointed pain in my fingy. That index finger was just scraping back and forth across the square edge of the back of my knife. I got the job done, but I injured myself in the process.

That little wound became a nagging and painful problem for the next week and half. The soreness hung around. The location was constantly being hit and beat up. I was in no real kind of dangerous pain, but It was annoying for sure.

The following week, again I was cutting a similar chunk of meat. Maybe this one wasn’t as firm, but I wanted to be sure and not hurt myself like I had the week before. I paid more attention to my grip on the knife. I was attentive to little hotspots that I could feel working on certain little pressure points in my hand. I did better that time, but still managed to cut a new blister in the gripping area of my right hand.

Finally this week, I really backed off of vigorous knifing techniques. I slowed down. I was deliberate and methodical. I moved my hand to many different positions and didn’t hardly stick with one for more than a stroke or two. I am pretty sure, this week, I won’t have even one blister to monitor, or work around in my hand. It has been a month since it was healed all over…

My hand is an easy place to notice excessive wear. It tells me quickly when I have hurt it. It remains in a state of painfulness and tenderness, that only fades slightly each day. The restoration is not immediate. It takes awhile to recover from a simple little surface level skin abrasion….

I wonder what other parts of my life are just like this. I wonder what other areas are wounded and need to be worked around for awhile till they heal. I am thinking that I still repeated my mistakes, even when I intended not to.

Today, it took as much conscious effort to protect the health of my hand, as it did, to complete the job, the task on the board in front of me.

Self preservation and accomplishing my goal, needed equal amounts of my attention and focus.

I just noticed this fact today. I noticed lots of them. I want to remind myself sometimes of the truths being shown to me in every little detail of life.

“How some things work, is how all things work.” I remember coach Steve Chandler saying. When I wonder if that statement is true, I find that yes, it seems to be.

Until next week, stay weird my friends.

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols