That’s what it says on the Colorado license plate.<\/p>\n
After three days of precipitation, we awoke to a bright blue sky and a temperature predicted to be in the fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 On a day like today, you put a move on it, you get in gear, you want to get out there.\u00c2\u00a0 And somewhere in the hubbub, Felice left her gloves in the condo.\u00c2\u00a0 But not wanting to hold up Steve or myself, she purchased a new pair.\u00c2\u00a0 The old ones had plenty of miles on them, she was due.<\/p>\n
But I was concerned they were not the right size.<\/p>\n
Felice is an impulse buyer.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m so busy researching, making sure I get the right thing, that oftentimes I buy nothing at all.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s worse?\u00c2\u00a0 I’d say my behavior. Life is about making mistakes.\u00c2\u00a0 If you always have to get it right, you don’t accomplish much, you’re stuck.<\/p>\n
But I need to make sure my girlfriend gets the exact right thing.\u00c2\u00a0 I want her to be happy, I don’t want her to be disappointed.\u00c2\u00a0 I told her we could make a run and she could go back into the store and try on a larger size, she could even return the gloves and go back to the condo for her old pair.\u00c2\u00a0 We’d just make a run on the Vista Bahn, Pepi’s Face was groomed, it looked so good.<\/p>\n
But Felice doesn’t like to hold anybody back.\u00c2\u00a0 She insisted we ride up.<\/p>\n
But when we got to Mid-Vail, now concerned she’d bought the wrong size, she went into the shop, also owned by Vail Resorts, but ultimately without exchange privileges.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice said not to worry about it, we should just ski, the Back Bowls were softening up, we didn’t want to miss them, she wanted me to be happy.<\/p>\n
But I wanted Felice to be happy.<\/p>\n
We exchanged the gloves, but that’s not the end of the story.<\/p>\n
Rather than dropping down the backside, we turned our skis back from whence we came.\u00c2\u00a0 We blitzed down Ramshorn, which was surprisingly good.\u00c2\u00a0 And after negotiating the skier control fences, we entered the long catwalk to Chair 2, Avanti, the last signpost on our way to the bottom.<\/p>\n
I wanted to make sure Felice got the right size gloves, but I’d be lying if I told you I was willing to burn any excess time.\u00c2\u00a0 So when I saw Felice approaching at the end of the half-mile path, I started to push off.\u00c2\u00a0 But something was wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 In retrospect, I don’t know if Steve saw something or I heard Felice yell, but after stopping I noticed a stricken countenance upon Felice’s face when she finally came into range.\u00c2\u00a0 She was yelling for me to stop, when she arrived she couldn’t stop crying.\u00c2\u00a0 What had happened?<\/p>\n
To have an incident in this stretch of trail would be like slipping in the school hallway.\u00c2\u00a0 It happens, but the path is negotiated every day, it’s almost flat.\u00c2\u00a0 But ridden with amateurs.<\/p>\n
Between sobs, the story came out.<\/p>\n
A beginner fell.\u00c2\u00a0 And so frustrated, he threw his ski in anger.\u00c2\u00a0 And this metal projectile hit Felice with force.<\/p>\n
This didn’t compute.\u00c2\u00a0 What kind of asshole would throw his ski in a fit of anger amongst a slew of people?<\/p>\n
A narcissist, Steve said, a person who only cared about himself.\u00c2\u00a0 Aren’t there too many of those in our society today?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t it all about mine for me, from Wall Street to the playing field?\u00c2\u00a0 If you can bend a rule, why not?\u00c2\u00a0 If someone gets screwed, they’re faceless, so it doesn’t really matter.<\/p>\n
Faceless.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to accost this spear-throwing individual.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to scream at him at the top of my lungs.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to make him feel bad, to get it through his thick skull that he’d done something wrong.<\/p>\n
But it would be like finding the guy who bumped into you in Times Square.\u00c2\u00a0 The moment had passed, that individual would never be seen again.<\/p>\n
So we exchanged the gloves at the bottom of the hill.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice did need a larger size.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt good, I’d done the right thing.\u00c2\u00a0 But Felice was complaining of a pain in her knee.<\/p>\n
And two chairlifts later, when we finally got to the backside, it was baked, it was too late, the slush was too heavy.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice tore her ACL in the slush, in the trees, so she’s trepidatious.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, she’s got the ability, the talent to ski ANY condition.\u00c2\u00a0 But once bitten, twice shy.<\/p>\n
But Blue Sky Basin was beckoning.\u00c2\u00a0 With its forests that Felice wants no part of anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 How about if we split up for a while?<\/p>\n
I was fearful Felice would quit.\u00c2\u00a0 I called a friend to hook up with her in the interim.\u00c2\u00a0 But I also wanted to ski, on this last day of Vail’s season.<\/p>\n
We split apart.<\/p>\n
I called Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 She said her run down was great, she did it non-stop.\u00c2\u00a0 But her knee was hurting her on the lift.<\/p>\n
Vickie called about partying at Belle’s Camp at the farthest reach of the ski area.\u00c2\u00a0 We made a run.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice called.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d gone to the bottom and gone in.\u00c2\u00a0 Upon taking off her ski pants, she found blood.<\/p>\n
You never know the level of someone else’s pain.\u00c2\u00a0 There are those who scream and go for MRI’s, but there’s no mark and ultimately nothing found.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there are those who refuse to go to the doctor, believing it’s better to be tough.\u00c2\u00a0 Like those who are depressed who’d rather commit suicide than see a psychiatrist.<\/p>\n
I told Felice to go to the clinic.\u00c2\u00a0 I insisted upon it.<\/p>\n
I said we’d return.<\/p>\n
The only problem was we were so far away, that it would take us forty five minutes to arrive, and she was only two minutes from the clinic.\u00c2\u00a0 It made no sense for her to wait for us.\u00c2\u00a0 She said it made no sense for us to return.\u00c2\u00a0 It was probably nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d know soon.\u00c2\u00a0 We should continue to ski.<\/p>\n
But I couldn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 I had that sinking feeling.\u00c2\u00a0 Of a day gone wrong through no fault of our own.\u00c2\u00a0 I was now in shock.\u00c2\u00a0 Could the injury be even more severe?<\/p>\n
We had to ski down to ride up to ski down to ride up to ski down again to get back to where we started.\u00c2\u00a0 But on the ski down, I lost Steve.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought he made a wrong turn.\u00c2\u00a0 But his binding pre-released and he took the worst fall of his life, he’s now hobbling, with a sprained knee and ankle.<\/p>\n
Thank god for cell phones.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice and I were in constant contact.\u00c2\u00a0 She did not have to wait long to see a doctor.\u00c2\u00a0 Who injected her with a local anesthetic in preparation of stitching her up.<\/p>\n
Yes, Felice needed five stitches.\u00c2\u00a0 The doctor debated x-raying her hand, but ultimately decided it was just bruised and gave her an ice pack to put upon it to reduce the swelling.<\/p>\n
And by time the procedure was done, we were there to pick her up.\u00c2\u00a0 She was cheerful.\u00c2\u00a0 I was speechless.<\/p>\n
Why did this happen to her?\u00c2\u00a0 She’d done nothing wrong!\u00c2\u00a0 Her twin sister would pooh-pooh her, for partaking in such a dangerous sport.\u00c2\u00a0 No one would understand.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a war between two worlds, the one inhabited by me, the heathen, and everybody who knew her before.<\/p>\n
So I have guilt.<\/p>\n
I’d say why didn’t it happen to me, but I’ll be honest, I cope with this shit worse than Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because I don’t come from a touchy-feely family, where attention is lavished upon you to make you feel whole.<\/p>\n
There are no answers.\u00c2\u00a0 There never are, not when there are accidents.<\/p>\n
The medical fee will exceed the price of the gloves, probably by a number of times.\u00c2\u00a0 If only she hadn’t returned them, this never would have happened.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Felice thought.<\/p>\n
Just like you replay every move, every choice you made before a car accident.<\/p>\n
I’m not looking for your sympathy.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m certainly not looking to be put down.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t Felice’s fault, it wasn’t mine.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the decision whether to return from Blue Sky Basin, we try to make choices.\u00c2\u00a0 Wondering whether to soldier on or stop and evaluate.\u00c2\u00a0 Your life can change in an instant.\u00c2\u00a0 But usually, you don’t know when that instant happens.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s only in the aftermath.\u00c2\u00a0 And as you get older, there are more of these incidents, and it’s harder to soldier on.<\/p>\n
On an absolute scale, this injury is a blip on the radar screen.\u00c2\u00a0 One that won’t be forgotten, but won’t be life-changing.\u00c2\u00a0 On one hand, you could say we were lucky.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like I was four days ago when that skier blasting along at forty miles an hour narrowly missed me on Northstar.\u00c2\u00a0 The movie can end in an instant.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you focus on that, and avoid all risk, the movie is already over.<\/p>\n
So I’m at loose ends.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t understand the mentality of these people.\u00c2\u00a0 The same drunks who bump into you at the gig, not wanting their fun spoiled.\u00c2\u00a0 Where’s the respect?<\/p>\n
On the license plate.<\/p>\n
But slogans don’t mean shit.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s who you are on the inside that counts.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s how you react in a crisis, whether you can be depended upon.<\/p>\n
I know I can depend on Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 I want her to know that she can depend on me.\u00c2\u00a0 That I’m not taking her on adventures willy-nilly, that I am considerate.\u00c2\u00a0 But the nature of living is being at risk.\u00c2\u00a0 Or as Bob Dylan so famously sang, "He not busy being born is busy dying."<\/p>\n
I just hope the psychological trauma is not too severe.\u00c2\u00a0 That Felice can shrug off this anomalous incident.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m not sure I could.<\/p>\n
But I do know that I always get back on the hill.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you have to.\u00c2\u00a0 Because that’s where the inspiration arises, that’s where the fun comes.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately sometimes at a cost, but we really wouldn’t want it any other way.\u00c2\u00a0 The unknown makes us feel alive.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s that thrill of exhilaration as you come over the rise and see an untracked field of powder.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can lose your balance, catch an edge and go down injured in that pristine snowfield.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the rub.\u00c2\u00a0 Today Felice was rubbed.<\/p>\n
But deep inside I know she’ll recover.\u00c2\u00a0 Because she’s got a will.\u00c2\u00a0 To live life to the fullest.<\/p>\n
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That’s what it says on the Colorado license plate. After three days of precipitation, we awoke to a bright blue sky and a temperature predicted to be in the fifties.\u00c2\u00a0 On a day like today, you put a move on it, you get in gear, you want to get out there.\u00c2\u00a0 And somewhere in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-uc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}