machado: life isn't always a straight line. how are you taking the corners?
just like running, life has many corners that offer a moment to pause, opportunities to gain some ground and a chance to prepare for the next leg of the race.
6 minute read
life has corners, or moments of pause: when a treatment works for a scary diagnosis, saying yes to a new job, the end of a marriage. getty
when i was about 12 years old, i began joining my dad on his nightly jogs. we’d run around the block — which was about two or three kilometres — and have breathy conversations about school, the daily news, and his latest work project.
as we ran, timing our progress, the long straight path of crumbling grey sidewalk stretched out in front of us, and i looked forward to the four corners, each one a different degree of turn, but all offering some respite for the burning in my legs. there was something about the change in direction, the way my body leaned in or out that felt like a little break, a chance to take a deep breath and make up some time.
“wait for the corner,” my dad would say if i began to tire and talk about stopping — just for a bit. he said that if i could hang in long enough to get to the bend in the sidewalk, i would get a boost and be able to keep going.
my dad was an engineer and a lover of math. he would have known that corners actually don’t shave off time, instead, they slow you down. yet for years, as i competed in 200 metre and relay races, i would credit the bends in the track for my winning times and he never once mentioned that a straight race is almost always faster than one with curves.
it wasn’t until many years later, after he had died, that i came across a story about professional car races and how much technique and expertise is required to not only take a corner smoothly, but also in a way that shaves milliseconds off of the race time — or at the very least doesn’t add to it. this made me curious if the same applied to running, and yup, it was true: corners don’t actually save you time (unless you are employing some well-calculated body adjustments or figuring out complex things like apexes and turn-in points). that said, they don’t necessarily slow you down either. in fact, in one study, researchers called the time difference in straight running versus running with curves “negligible.”
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corners feel like an opportunity to take a breath and get ahead
doesn’t really matter though. even now, decades after those late-night runs, whether i am walking to the grocery store or rushing through the streets of my busy neighbourhood, corners still feel like an opportunity to take a breath and get ahead. and as i have gotten older, i have noticed that life has corners too: when a treatment works for a scary diagnosis, saying yes to a new job, the end of a marriage. these have all felt like important moments of pause, opportunities to gain some ground and gather myself for the next leg of the race.
this week, i was standing in line at the princess margaret cancer centre waiting to register to have my blood tested. it’s been 15 years, but my stomach still clenches as i wait with other patients in different stages of cancer. there were about five people in front of me, and so many behind. a nurse who remembered my kids as babies, sitting on my lap as she filled vial after vial of blood, caught my eye from behind the reception desk.
“how are you? she asked, speaking loudly from behind the plastic barrier. we got into a long distance catch-up about kids, jobs and life, our conversation pausing each time she checked in a patient. she said that she was thinking of retiring, moving somewhere hot, maybe. she said she needed a moment to think and plan — that she wanted to start the next phase of her life.
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“this is your corner,” i said, explaining how it sounded like the perfect time to slow down slightly, enjoy the turn, take a breath, and lean in or lean out while contemplating the new opportunities that lay just around the bend.
when she left to help a patient in a wheelchair navigate her way through the crowded lobby, there was one person waiting in front of me. the woman behind me was giggling. she looked like she was in her thirties, with glowing brown skin and thick shiny black hair that sat on her shoulders. she was a little shorter than the man she had her arms wrapped around. she was smiling up at him, a dimple in the crook of each cheek. her pink lipstick had rubbed off on one of her front teeth.
the man was very thin, his bright blue eyes were sunken into the greyish skin of his eye sockets, and there was a deep red scar that ran from the back of one ear, along the base of his bare skull, to the other ear. it was hard to get an idea of his age, but he probably wasn’t much older than the woman. his bony fingers were gripping the worn handles of a walker, and i could see a white hospital band on his wrist. it was pulled to the smallest length, but still, it had slipped down the top of his hand to the middle of his palm. only one of the five buttons of his blue cardigan was done up, and the sharp outline of his elbows pulled the sweater into dramatic triangles that puffed out on the backs of his arms.
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she left her door open so when she dreamed, she could leave and go on adventures
it was a process for him to speak, but you could tell he was used to the effort: first, a very deep breath in, and then words whispered in a raspy wave, slow and then fast, as if the thoughts had been squished inside his head and were frantically trying to escape — sometimes jumbled, sometimes uncertain. she kept smiling, her shiny eyes never leaving his, waiting patiently until he got his words out before poking him gently and laughing.
they were joking about how she liked the door of their bedroom to be open when she was asleep.
“it’s so when i dream, i can leave and go on adventures,” she said, and then he laughed, a ghostly, gaspy chuckle that made him hold his side and grimace.
my name was called and i settled into the soft blue leather chair in cubicle number nine. the technician was tying a tourniquet around my arm when the couple slowly walked by the doorway. the woman still had her arm around the man’s waist, while a nurse stood on his other side, helping to lift the walker one step at a time. the woman looked in and stopped when she saw me.
“i liked what you said about the corner,” she said, as the nurse and man continued walking. “it hasn’t been looking good for paul for a long time, but he just got good news about a new drug that seems to be working for some people. he’s getting it today. i think it might be our corner.”
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she stopped smiling for a moment, and lowered her voice. “it’s been so tiring and sad, all we have seen is one long road to … well, you know. i have felt like i don’t have a moment to breathe, and i can’t rest. but a chance to try this medication shakes things up for us, and now we’re not as certain as to what comes next. but that’s good. it’s our corner, right?”
i looked for them when i was done, but they were gone. outside the clinic, the line of patients wasn’t any shorter and the almost-retired nurse was still checking people in. with a red pen in her mouth, she smiled as she waved.
“good luck,” she said through clenched teeth. “i wish you lots of great corners.”
we laughed, and i headed toward the exit. just before the door there was an always-busy tim hortons, and i spotted the couple huddled at a small round table. the woman was cutting a doughnut with sprinkles on top into small pieces, while the man held his coffee cup up high with a shaky hand. she gently touched her cup to his, kissing him lightly on his hand.
here’s hoping for a great corner.
lisa machado is the executive producer of healthing.ca. follow her @iamlisamachado.
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