I was skiing some pow bumps in the woods with a friend
yesterday and as I turned over an innocuous rise, I landed a loaded ski on a
rock on the back side. It tossed me steeply
and quickly downhill, on to the back of my head and helmet and I heard a crunch
in my neck on another rock as I let out a low groan. I thought 'this is what its like to break your neck'.
I sat there for a bit and my trusty friend Paul came up and
asked me if I was OK. “I’m not sure”, I
thought, “I’m too old for this shit”. I
could move my head around gingerly, so my neck wasn’t broken, and It didn’t feel
like a concussion, so we sat there for a minute and got it together slowly. “I’m fine.”
As we skied back to our band of brothers, I felt the stretching
soreness down my back and in my chest, into my lungs and heart. I skied cautiously and conservatively for the
rest of the day. I could not fly. I could not swoop. I feel better today after a night of icing
and a morning of heat, but a seminal feeling remains in the back of my mind. “Don’t get cocky kid.”
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