It's Been a Year

It’s been a year.

It was a year ago today that I broke myself.

What was supposed to be a short day of skiing has turned into a year (and counting) of diminished physical capacity.

It turned into a year of trying to understand that I don’t move physically through the world the way I used to - the way I wish I did.

It turned into a year of coming to recognize who the people are who love me - and recognizing that they love me because of who I am, not what I can do.

It was a year ago that I broke myself.

It’s been a year that I’ve spent experiencing healing.

It’s been a good year.

Smaller world: Reflections after a ski accident

My world has gotten
considerably
notably
remarkably
smaller
over the past couple of weeks

That same world, which was expansive before
has shrunk considerably in the past month
from looking out the window of my car
or across the front range
I looked to the wilder places
at peaks and valleys to explore
at vistas to take in from the back of a bicycle

my view shrunk
to my love, and the handful of people who are closest to me
to what I could see looking up from an ICU bed
my view shrunk
to a small slice of foothills and building
outside the hospital window
to a couple of nurses at a time,
who made sure I wouldn’t die that day
my view shrunk
to swallowing two pills
and eating one small bowl of Jello

Early one afternoon,
a beautiful day of skiing
turned surprisingly and swiftly (and violently?)
into the beginning of a personal and communal struggle

Weeks later,
I roll around with predictions rattling in my head
that cerebral electrical connections
will reestablish communication
and sinews atrophied by weeks of disuse
will be strengthened by moving again
though in very deliberate and intentional ways
even while I roll around, also,
with the idea that I’ll never stop sitting and rolling