I had a most excellent weekend in Crested Butte. The weather was perfect, the snow was slushy enough to overcome its sparseness, the house was beautiful, and the company was great. All in all, it was a blast. Except for the part where this guy from Texas and I collided in the middle of the ski run.
I've been wrestling with myself for the past couple of days, trying to decide whether to blog about this or not. I've finally stopped crying whenever I think about it, and I'd like to keep it that way. Plus, I had this horrible thought that the Texan in question might go googling around for information about me and decide to use these thoughts for his own litigious purposes. But this is my space in which to vent and process, so here it is.
The collision itself was neither high-speed nor particularly damaging to either party. As best I remember, I was skiing in a pretty straight line downhill. I remember thinking to myself, "damn, girl, you're finally getting the hang of this telemark thing." One of my friends was waiting by an orange "SLOW" sign just ahead of me, and I was getting ready to stop next to him. I know there was no one in front of me, or in my immediate fall line, because I do recall looking around to make sure no one was coming my way (those signs are popular stopping points, so I'm always extra careful when approaching them). Then something hit me hard from the left side, and I went flying to my right and landed hard on my right hip. I lay stunned for an indeterminate stretch of time before I realized that I was basically okay and managed to sit up.
By that time, the ski patrollers had arrived and were busy checking both of us over for injuries and had started taking statements from my friends and the other guy's family. According to my friends, the guy's wife raced over screaming "I SAW THE WHOLE THING!! I SAW THE WHOLE THING!!" But she didn't seem to have any better sense of what had happened than the rest of us did, and once she realized her husband was pretty much fine, she calmed down.
After perhaps fifteen minutes, we were both able to ski away from the scene of the accident. I continued skiing (shakily) for a few more runs, but started feeling dizzy and nauseous and decided to go to the clinic to make sure I hadn't sustained a concussion. Fortunately, the nice medical staff determined that I had not suffered any serious injuries other than a crippled psyche. They treated me with ice, oxygen, and Advil and sent me home.
Physically, I really was okay. And while I don't remember much of what happened, judging from what my friends told me later and from the location of my assorted bumps and bruises, it probably was not my "fault." Apparently, the Texan was taking huge, wide turns, and my friends think he was paying attention to his daughter skiing below him rather than to his surroundings. But all day Saturday (and even now) I kept replaying the scene over and over in my mind. I couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility. More than that, I couldn't rid myself of the frightening thought that I may be endangering myself and others by continuing to ski. Giving up driving was terribly hard, but giving up skiing (or climbing, or cycling, or running) would mean foregoing one of my great pleasures in life, and one of the things that helps me feel free and independent even as my vision shrinks.
I woke up Sunday morning feeling a bit brighter about the whole thing, albeit rather sore. Screwing up my courage, I decided to spend the morning skiing, figuring I needed to get back on the horse before it kicked me again. I'm glad I did. I was pretty nervous at first. I tried to pick a line close to the trees wherever possible, and slowed to a near stop whenever we encountered congestion. But it was a glorious day, with a perfect Colorado sky, warm sunshine, and almost no crowds. In less than three hours of slope time, we got in at least ten runs, and I felt like my tele turns were finally coming easy. Most important, I realized that my coping mechanisms do work, that I can see what I need to for skiing, and that what happened on Saturday was just one of those things that happen sometimes on crowded ski runs. True, someone with "normal" eyes might well have seen the Texan coming. Then again, folks who can see tend to ski a lot faster and more aggressively in a crowd than I ever do.
I'm still upset about this incident, and have some residual feelings I need to process. But I'm not quite ready to hang up my skis.
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