Scars & The School Board Race

My left knee is a mess.

It is covered in scars from bike crashes and an ACL surgery. The ugliest scar is from when I took a tumble delivering a campaign yard sign to a neighbor when I ran for Seattle School Board ten years ago.

My neighbor, Mr Eckhardt, was an elderly man who lived on Ravenna Blvd. Ravenna Blvd is a beautiful thoroughfare through Northeast Seattle designed by the Olmstead Brothers to connect Green Lake and Ravenna Park. It is one of the most beautiful streets in all of Seattle.

It was mid-afternoon in the late summer. I was going to deliver the yard sign before I truck down to Renton to watch my middle school aged son play in a soccer tournament.

I was wearing a khaki skirt and a navy blue cashmere sweater and I am drinking homemade hot chocolate in a travel mug for my mid-afternoon low-kay caffeine boost. It is summer in Seattle--a little chilly so the sweater and warm drink are fine. I was lowkey dressed up, as I always was during the campaign. I learned the hard way that I always was on stage after I went to pick up my son at school after Rocket Club. I wouldn't say I was technically wearing pajamas, but I was wearing an old t-shirt and ratty sweat pants that I had slept in before. The kids were late, and I had to get out of my car and talk to my base. In my pajamas. My then husband was horrified when I told him about it.

"You are always on stage. All the time."

I thought that was a little extreme. I mean, it was a down ballot, local race. I wasn't running for Senate or Congress or City Council, but he had a point. 

I was the establishment candidate, running for office after a few years as a parent advocate and President of the Seattle Council of PTSA. I wasn't some rabble rouser candidate, lambasting the District and the current Board. I was the rational, logical, reserved and composed candidate. I had to look and act the part.

My neighbor isn't home, but the eighty year old frail Mrs. Eckhardt is. She is shy and takes the sign. I thank her for their support of my campaign, and head back home. 

About twenty feet from her house, I trip on uneven pavement. If I were skiing, the fall would have been called a yard sale. Everything went flying -- the travel mug and me. I took years of ballet as a kid and I am more graceful than the average bear. Not to brag, but I usually don't fall. Last year, I was walking in Pioneer Square and my foot caught uneven pavement and I went flying, but I defied gravity (Take that, bitch) and avoided the ground and a lamppost. 

I wasn't so lucky in the summer of 2015. I hit the pavement hard. My travel mug popped open and the  hot chocolate burned my hand, but my poor knee took it the worst. Six months before a skiing tumble would lead my to ACL surgery, my knee had a pretty bad scape that my future surgeon and physical therapist would look my knee, grimace, and ask what the hell happened. 

It was ugly. 

The cry and screams I let out were uglier. A burned hand was one thing, and a bloody knee was another, but both? OMG. I let it all out.

I screamed and I cried and I ran back to my neighbor's house to ask for help. The little old lady was terrified at me covered in tears and blood and hot chocolate.

"Can you help me?" I pleaded. She led me into her kitchen. I ran my hand under cold water as she pulled out a clean kitchen towel. I wet the towel and cleaned my knee. The cold water and blood made the blood look worse, like there was way more of it than there actually was.

I was a mess. I walked home crying and blubbering, blood running down my calf.

It was the first time I had an emotional breakdown in public while running for office. Remember, I was the rational, logical, reserved and composed candidate. I wasn't out protesting, yelling and screaming. I was the one on the sidelines, watching the protests, listening, talking to people on the sidelines. Then I'd go back to the halls of power and get shit done. I likened my political style to State Senator Jamie Pedersen, the rational, logical, reserved and composed politician to who wrote the legislation for marriage equality in the State of Washington. While others were marching in the streets, waving flags and carrying signs promoting gay marriage, I imagine Jamie heads down, locked in the halls of government making those protesters dreams a reality.

That was what I aspired to be--the person who made those collective dreams a reality.

After my fall, it felt good to cry, even if my knee was full of gravel and my hand was toasted. After being buttoned up for months, it felt good to let loose and cry in public, full on with snot bubbles.

Looking back, I wonder why I didn't show my emotions more during the campaign, why I wasn't sad or angry or outraged, why I didn't cry and yell and pound my fist.

I don't know. Maybe if I had, maybe I could have won.

You Have Nothing to Prove, and Where Did I Go Right?

I need to remember this the next time I do anything. I have nothing to prove to anyone ever, including myself. Most especially myself.

You are welcome for this hard earned wisdom I learned today.

Yesterday was wet, so wet there was a rainbow.

I am with my family on Spring Break in Whistler. This was not my first choice for vacation, but everyone else wanted to go here, especially the Boy. To me, a big ski vacation is like going to Disneyland--the only reason I would go is because my kids want to go. And my kids have never wanted to see Disneyland or Disney World, so I dodged those bullets. When he was younger, the Boy wanted to see Legoland, the masculine version of Disneyland -- all building materials and no tulle in sight. When Claire-Adele was ten, she wanted to go to London and I was totally hip to that.

I wouldn't be complaining about skiing if I wasn't such a laggard compared to my family. Eight years ago, I was the best skier in my family, as the kids didn't know how to ski and Jack was meh. Jack and I thought skiing would be a great way to get out of the house in the gray and gloomy winters in the Pacific Northwest. Little did I know then my kids would take to skiing like rats to a sewer. Where did I go right?

I am not complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break. I am complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break again. Seriously, I'd like to go someplace else for vacation. My friends on Facebook are in Mexico, Iceland, Hawaii, and Palm Springs. Claire-Adele's boyfriend went to Europe. I would like to be in any of those places. I have other friends who are in Ohio, Iowa and Boston for vacation. The midwest is looking good. The friend in Mexico is remarried and I am FB friends with his new wife, which is nice. I was so jealous of her pictures. What I am going to have to do to get a vacation in Mexico where I can sit on the beach and/or poolside while someone brings me cervezas? Get divorced, remarried, and find someone who wants to go to Mexico for vacation? That's a bit extreme, if you ask me.

Not exactly a bluebird day.

Instead of floating in the ocean in Maui, I am burning my thighs, hamstrings and glutes in very wintery weather. This morning, the snow at 6,000 was firm. Lower down in the middle of the afternoon, it was heavy and wet. Very heavy and very wet. And the runs here are long. Very long. Which means unless I stopped and rested, my legs got really tired. Pre-ACL tear, I loved it when my thighs burned when I skied. Post-ACL tear, I freak out when my legs burn.

A few runs after lunch, I left my family on Blackcomb and I went back to Whistler on the Peak-to-Peak. Whistler was blustery. Not regular blustery, but mountain blustery. I decided to try to the snow lower on the mountain, which was--as mentioned before--heavy and wet. The Eskimos must have a name for this shit, but likely not. Or they do now with the global warming. They probably call it something like snow that should melt if it weren't for the vast amount of it keeping it cold itself. My daughter called it mashed potato snow. This was more like mud snow, except it was fast. I hated this snow.

More than I hated this snow, I hated myself for thinking I could get down. At the mid-station, I could have ridden the gondola back down. There was even a nice sign "Tired? Cold? Ride the Gondola down!" Did I listen to the sign? No. I thought if I rested a bit my legs would feel better and I could make it down. So I rested. Nevermind my legs were pooped. Nevermind I asked some old timer on mono-ski what the snow was like, and he said "Just as bad as this here, except worse."

Did I listen to my legs, the sign at the gondola and an expert old guy skier?

No. I did not.

I can make it down, I told myself.

But you want to ski another day, I told myself back.

You did it yesterday and it was a piece of cake, I told myself again. And the snow doesn't look that bad. It could be fine.

Alright, I told myself. I can do this.

Are you sure? There is no shame in taking the gondola down, thought my sensible, sane, conservative self. You've already skied down 2,800 vertical feet. That's enough.

You can handle another 1,000 vertical feet, I told myself. Come on. What are you, some kind of a wuss? Besides, it will be fun.

Fun. Right. I wouldn't talk to my best friend like that, but I talk to myself like that. That is messed up. What is more messed up is that no one else was there pushing me to go down. As much as I'd like to, I cannot blame Jack, Claire-Adele, or the Boy. I brought this whole disaster on myself.

The snow was a mess. When I made it down the first turn, I seriously thought about marching back up. There was one steep spot that wasn't too steep except for the shit condition of the snow. I had to side step down. I had no pride. I was snowplowing part of it. Evan, my physical therapist, would tell me I was good at recruiting other muscles to do the work in my physical therapy, which is not a good thing for physical therapy when you are trying to re-activate your quadriceps. Recruiting other muscles was fantastic today when I was trying to get down the hill.

All of this makes me forget how much fun I have skiing. Skiing is like the little girl with little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it horrid.

We only have three more days here before we head back to Seattle. Tomorrow, I will listen to my sensible self.

Views from Peak-to-Peak

He's Back

Five weeks after he broke his collarbone, the Boy was back on skis this weekend. The sports medicine doc--the same guy I saw when I tore my ACL--said the Boy could go on the greens and the groomers with his mom after six to eight weeks. No "sending it" until twelve weeks. Jack and I decided the Boy needed to get back on the mountain for his sanity and ours, collarbone be damned.

"The Boy doesn't fall when he skis," said Jack. "Well, he doesn't fall when he regular skis. That doesn't count jumps or rails."

"I am not worried about the Boy as much as I am worried about him getting plowed over by other people," said Dr. Kary. His own ten year old son got creamed by a guy the size of a linebacker the previous weekend while snowboarding.

Friday afternoon, I got a text from the Boy.

The Boy: Let's just say I have to go skiing tomorrow.

Me: Can you find a friend to take you?

The Boy: (Crickets.)

Hmmm, I thought. When I got home, I asked if anyone could take him.

"Nah," he said. "I am going to stay on the blues and greens." Jack was worked this past weekend. "Can you take me?"

I agreed. Saturday morning, the Boy woke me up. He came into my bedroom and started clapping. (I'll have to remember this the next time I need to wake him.)

"Let's get moving," he said.

Dude, I thought. It's Saturday. Let me sleep. "You can pack up the skis and equipment," I said, rolling over and hugging my pillow. He went to the basement and gathered the gear while I ate breakfast and walked the dog.

As we were getting on to I-90 from 405--about twelve minutes from home because I was driving wicked fast--I asked if he had packed my boots.

"Fuck," he said.

"I can rent boots," I said.

"No, you'll be happier in your own boots. and you'll need to use shitty rental skis. We can go back and get them." So we did. I drove back to Seattle. The Boy got my boots and we drove off.

"I didn't want someone else's parents to be liable if I got hurt while skiing with their kid," he said. The other part was he didn't want to ski with his friends on his first turn back.

"Besides," he said. "I am going to teach you how to ski. You need to improve your form. This will be work. This will not be cruising down the mountain for fun. This will be your job."

Since my ACL injury, I have been stuck on the greens. Last year, I asked my physical therapist if I should take a ski lesson to get my groove back.

"You might," said Evan. "That might help." I stalled on the idea because I wasn't sure I wanted to be pushed. I was comfortable skiing on the greens. I wasn't sure I wanted to make it to the blues.

We got to Summit West, the beginner hill, a place where my son would typically not hang out with his friends except for the dudes who like Wildside and the mini-terrain park.

The Boy hit the top of Pacific Crest while I was putting on my knee brace. I thought he might not be serious about teaching me until I got a text from him asking where I was. By time I got to the green lift, he was there waiting for me. On the lift, he asked in a drill sergeant voice "Do you want to ski better than you did before?" I almost barked back, "Yes sir."

"Let's go," he said. When we got to the top of the lift, he gave me directions. "Go down, do a few turns, then stop."

I followed his instructions.

"Your form doesn't suck," he said. "Try it again." After two runs, he was still amazed. "Your form isn't shit. Let's go to Pacific Crest. You can do it. You need to build up speed so it is easier to turn."

When we got to Pacific Crest, we watched me on a steeper section. "You lift your uphill foot when you turn. Don't do that. Keep it down. Roll back and forth from your uphill and downhill ski when you turn, Keep your skis flat in the middle when you are going straight."

I did what he said, and followed him down the mountain. I watched his form and followed his tracks. I watched his posture, and when he bent his knees, and tried to copy him like I did took ballet lessons as a kid.

Don't think, I said to myself. Just let your body mimic what he is doing. I was easily skiing the steepest hill I have since I tore my ACL. Here I was thinking I needed to hire ski instructor, when I have a coach right here in my family, and he didn't charge me $150 to spend an afternoon on the hill with him.

Everything was fine until the middle of the afternoon. The Boy and I were on the lift with two other people. I was in the far right side of the chair and the Boy was next to me. As we got off the lift, the girl next to Peter crossed her skis with him, and then his skis crossed into my path. I was afraid to get off the chair, until it started to turn and go back down the hill when I jumped off. The chair stopped, and the Boy and I were down on the ground.

Fuck, I thought. I've known people who have gotten hurt getting plowed over by nubes getting the chair lift. "Are you okay?" I asked him.

"I'm fine," he said. I felt fine, too. We both survived the beginner crashing off the chair.

After that, the Boy wanted to go his own way. He wanted to hit the moguls and the black runs to shred the gnar. He left me for the afternoon. At the end of the day, he met at the bottom of Pacific Crest, and we did one last run together.

We both are back.

View from the lift.

Knee Update in Poetry

Today is a day
For sensible shoes.

Exercise v. the Stock Market, or The Boy v. Me

Today, Jack and the Boy went skiing. Last week, the Boy broke one his skis trying to nail a 3, but he tail dragged the landing and the ski cracked.* This week, the Boy got new skis. I heard the dudes at the ski shop gave the Boy fist bumps for breaking a ski. "You are doing it right!" they said. I knew the Boy was going to try the gnarly stuff today, so I let Jack and the Boy have their male bonding experience. Claire-Adele is going to the Winter Ball tonight, so I stayed home and to make sure all of that went according to plan.  She has it all organized, but Jack didn't know if he'd be back in time to drive Claire-Adele and her boyfriend to the dance. Which meant I went to the YMCA and then went to lunch with a friend.

New skis

At the YMCA, I ran on the treadmill. I had been running for 17:28 minutes listening to Alicia Keys when--wham--my left knee decided to stop working.

Fuck. This is the same knee I with the ACL, MCL and meniscus I tore two years ago.

I think I over-extended my knee and pulled whatever muscle that is. I had to turn the treadmill off and hobble to the front desk and asked if someone could help me get to my car. I could walk (kind of), but my leg was really stiff. I parked two blocks away as there was no parking in the YMCA parking lot because

a) It was Saturday morning, a popular time to exercise,
b) It is January, a popular time to exercise, and
c) It was raining and the even though we Seattlites are a hardy breed, sometimes it is nicer to exercise indoors when the weather outside sucks.

One of the guys who finished working out himself let me grab his arm and walked me back to my car. We chatted while his wife took their screaming toddlers to the Farmers' Market. He only gets half-points for his Boy Scout badge for helping an old lady cross the street as his good deed got him out of a dreadful chore. Nevertheless, his help was invaluable. The biggest thing he did was talk to me to distract me from my achiness.

"Exercise is supposed to be good for you in the long-term," he said. "But somethings things don't work out in the short term."

Exercise > Sitting on the couch

"Just like the stock market," I said. "It goes up for time but every now and then it takes a nose dive."

Stock Market Long-Term Gains > Money in a Mattress

Yep. In another nose dive. At least now I have a better sense of how to treat it. Compared to two years ago, I figured out much faster what I could and couldn't do when I walked, like bend my knee. I know ibuprofen is my friend. I know how to test if moving makes my leg better or worse. And most importantly, I know that almost no one tears their ACL while running on a treadmill.

Still, it makes me wonder if I would have been better off skiing with Jack and the Boy today. I'll never know, but I could guess.

The Boy does this and bounces back. I am borderline immobile from the treadmill. Perhaps the most important part of this isn't whether I ski or not, but rather my age and general fitness.

Fourteen year old boy > Forty-something mom

* Translation -- He did a jump, tried to do a 360 degree spin, landed on the back of his ski and it cracked.

Blackcomb

The Boy wanted to go skiing, so Jack decided to take him to Whistler this weekend. Claire-Adele and I decided we didn't want to be left behind, so we joined their boys' weekend. When Claire-Adele was ten, she and I went to London for a week. It was a beautiful mother-daughter trip, and I should have let Jack and the Boy have this to themselves. But I didn't. When Claire-Adele goes to college in a year and a half, Jack and the Boy will have three years for father-son bonding. I don't feel so bad now. Besides, they ski a lot together during the winter.

Friday night, we crossed the border into Canada at Lynden with four pairs of skis on the roof. I was going to give it a go. We had a long, slow drive from Seattle to Whistler, arriving at 10:30 or so. My kids were so cranky and fussy you would have thought they were toddlers. Or teenagers.

The Boy was awake at 7:00. He is on a club soccer team, and skiing is his second sport. This past year, he has skied thirty days and counting. One of Jack's friends said you need thirty days in a season to dramatically improve. To contrast, I've skied four days so far this season. I've asked the Boy if he wants to join a ski team, but he says no. He prefers free-skiing and jumping in the terrain parks instead of racing, although he is pretty fast. Think of a football running back or any soccer player versus a track star. Speed is a key element for running backs and soccer players, but they do more stuff. The Boy likes the stuff. He can be grumpy and sour in the damp and dreary Seattle winter, and then a day of skiing lifts his mood.

He heard Jack and I talking and popped into our bedroom with a giant smile on his face, apparently having forgotten the snottiness between him and his sister last night. The lifts didn't open until 10, so we had three hours to kill before we left. The Boy was happy to run into the Village to get breakfast with his dad. In a normal world, the Boy would be in bed on the weekend and wouldn't talk until fed. Now he was chipper.

After we ate breakfast and got to the gondola, I was walking around looking a little lost when one of the Whistler guides approached me.

"Which green runs are open?" I asked.

The woman was shy of seventy years old and probably been skiing for sixty-five of her years.

"There aren't any beginner runs open," she said. "It's just the top of Blackcomb. Are you a beginner?" she asked, looking alarmed. Later I thought I should have told her I was a re-beginner, someone used to be decent and then needed to start over. Only the diehards come out for spring skiing after Whistler  Mountain is closed for the season. When we have skied here before, we shave spent most of our time on Whistler, riding the Peak-to-Peak to check out a few runs on Blackcomb and to admire the epic view.

I told her I am recovering from an ACL surgery and I've skied a few times already, but I needed to warm up. She looked relieved and told me where to go.

"There is a steep section at the top of the Excelerator Express lift, and then you take the Jersey Cream Express to the Expressway, and Easy Out runs," she said. "You can take Catskinner Chair back up and warm up on those. After that, Seventh Heaven is supposed to be good today. Lots of easy and wide blue runs," she said.

"Thanks, I said. "I've skied Seventh Heaven before I tore my ACL," I said. I have. Those are great runs, probably my favorites. That was back when I could ski all day for three or four days. I am not waxing nostalgic about my youth when I could do anything. It isn't fair to compare my current state to when I was twenty-three. I could ski for days back when I was in my mid-forties instead of my late forties.

"Good luck!" she said. I would need it.

Here I wish I had a brain-to-blog app to track all my thoughts as I went down the runs. I'll try to re-create the highlights here.

When I got to the top of the Execelator Express lift, I had to take a steep little hill down to the Jersey Cream Express lift. The kind Whistler Ambassador warned me about this. Everyone getting off the gondola was heading down this run. The steepness alone wasn't the issue. In addition to being crowded, the snow was concrete. I couldn't stick my pole into the snow it was that hard. This is a hazard of spring skiing. The snow melts in the afternoon and can be wonderfully soft, but then overnight temps dip below freezing and the next morning you have concrete.

I stood at the top of the lip and looked down. There was no way I could carve on this. I thought about downloading back down on the chairlift I just came up and then taking the gondola to the base. Jack paid for four lift tickets, but the exchange rate is 73 American cents for a Canadian dollar. In effect, my ski ticket is free and if we pretend we paid American dollars for Canadian lift tickets.

I decided to give it a shot. I watched other people ski to see if anyone found soft snow. I saw softer snow to the far right of the run. I moved to the left and skied across the width of the run so I wouldn't have to turn much.

A run that should have taken a minute took me ten. Then I wondered how I was going to get back down the mountain. What if there weren't any open green runs back to the gondola? What if they didn't download on the chairlifts?

I got to the top and skied down Easy One. This is a family, beginner area. It, too, was concrete. My kids had gone ahead and already did a run in the time to took me to get to the top of the lift. Jack texted them, and they met us mid-run, and then skied off.

The last time I was at Whistler, I thought the Easy One run was the easiest, most boring run in the world. I understood why people wanted to ski more challenging stuff. Now, my legs were tired by the end of the run. There was one part where Jack told me I had to get my momentum up to make it up a small hill. I managed to do that, and that was the fastest I skied all day. My right leg was more tired than my left which was wearing the brace. I wondered if I should get a brace for my right leg, too. While the steepness wasn't any worse than what I had been skiing earlier this winter at Snoqualmie, the difference was the length of the run. This run was ten times longer--maybe more--than Little Thunder. I was tired, both mentally and physically. I had to concentrate the entire time. There wasn't free space in my brain where I could relax and be in the zone. My brain didn't trust my body to take the runs without intervention.

I took a break for an hour at the Rendezvous Cafe while Jack and the kids skied some more. At lunch, the Boy was dejected when I asked how it was.

"The terrain park had two parts," he said. "One was too easy and the other one I would have killed myself." I had seen the jumps in terrain park on the Catskinner lift. I saw people getting air for several seconds while they did backflips. It looked cool, but it also looked deadly if you didn't know what you were doing. I am glad the Boy didn't try them. "If you make a mistake waterskiing, you splash," said the Boy. "If you crash on these jumps, you will crack."

After lunch, I decided to ski back down while Jack and the kids skied the glaciers at the top of the mountain. It had snowed about two inches while I was taking a break. When I got back out, the skiing was remarkably better.  I took the Easy Way Down, which is a road run which felt about three miles long. My Toyota RAV4 could have done this run, no problem. The challenge with this run was the narrowness and the tiny signs orange signs the size of my glove along the boundary that said

WARNING. Out of Bounds Area. Not Patrolled.

with a drop off on the left side of the run. (I don't know exactly how small the signs were--I didn't want to get that close to the edge to see.)

Great, I thought. If I fall off the edge here, no one will ever find me. There probably isn't even a cell signal out here. A bear would probably find my remains in the spring. This horrible inner-dialogue haunted me on the way down. Once I got out of the road run section and back into the regular part, the fog came in. It was more like a cloud where you can't see anything. Finally, I got to Solar Coaster, which was going up, and Wizard Express, which was going down. My plan was to take a green run back to the top of the gondola and ride back down, but I couldn't see the run that would take me there.

Fuck it, I thought. We are skiing again tomorrow. I'll download to the bottom and walk back to the car.

I took a picture at the bottom at the end of the day. I didn't want to press my luck by taking a picture at the top. There is a mountain in the background, but it is covered in fog. Trust me.

As I was walking back to the car, I crossed a footbridge over a creek. I stopped to look at the water that was melting off the mountain. A majority of the water in the creek had once been snow. This water had been on a transformative journey. It melted and was filtered and then picked up minerals as it ran through the rocks in the mountain.

I remember what my dad said a year and four months ago when I tore my ACL. "It's going to be all uphill from here, but when you get to the top, you'll be in really great shape."

Sixteen months ago, I couldn't walk, and now I am skiing again. Sixteen months ago, I was coming off the loss from the School Board election and was unemployed. Now I am in training for a new job that I'll start in August. As I stood at the bottom of the mountain looking at the creek, I thought about what my dad said and all of my uphill climbing last year.

I made it to the top of the hill. And I am in great shape.

Explosive & Ping

I had what I thought was going to be my last physical therapy appointment on Friday. Alas, it was not. I have one more. At least. As one of my roommates from college used to say, "Heavy sigh."

Part of me wants to be done and say my knee is good enough. I can walk, run and bike. I can ski and Zumba. Shouldn't that be good enough?

At the beginning of this process, my physical therapist and surgeon asked me what my goals were for recovery. I listed a bunch of stuff, like walk my dog, ski and play tennis. All of that was fine. I didn't realize it at the time because I couldn't foresee what my knee would be like a year later, but my real goal was to be able to move without restriction, that I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I wanted a normal knee.

I went into see Evan last Friday, and I complained. In fairness, he asked me how it is going. I take this to mean "tell me what isn't good" versus "tell me it is all good." I do tell him the good news. I told him that I had been skiing and I am taking Zumba classes, which are two significant milestones. I also told him my knee isn't as jumpy and responsive as I want it to be.

"I feel like I wouldn't be able to play tennis yet," I said. "I feel like my knee is strong, but it is sluggish. I am not sure I could chase the ball and move quickly enough."

"You need to work on explosiveness," he said. I never thought explosiveness was a tangible thing. When I hear explosiveness in the context of athletics, I think of an adjective sportscasters picked up in a thesaurus to describe basketball stars. "Explosiveness" makes it sound like I want to be a future receive for the Seahawks or play tennis against Serena Williams. Which is cool. "Explosive" is a real thing which means the opposite of sluggish. I want to be explosive. It means agile and sprightly and spry, so I can bounce and dance a jig when I want to.

In prior weeks, I was focusing on building up the final bits of strength so both legs would be equally strong. I finally passed all three strength tests (barely on the one-hop test).

"You are fine on your percentages comparing left to right, but you don't look good when you jump on the left leg," Evan said. To a person who hasn't been to physical therapy as long as I have been going to Evan, this might sound like a huge insult. It is not, especially since I knew how awful I looked jumping on my left leg compared to the right. I would stick the landing on my right leg, but would often double jump on the left leg. Not only do I have a hard time sticking the landing, but I also looked like a windmill flapping my arms to keep my balance when I landed. If my legs were gymnasts competing against each other, my right leg would get a gold medal and my left leg would be in fifth place, which is remarkable since there are only two athletes in this competition.

Evan gave me some new hopping exercises to work on to help me stick my landings. This is all good, but I wonder how much is too much. Do I really need these extra exercises, or is this unnecessary polish?

I really need these exercises. It isn't a matter of having the perfect knee, it is more about having my left leg feel equal to my right. I think back to what Evan told me a few appointments ago: when your body doesn't have symmetry, it pings your brain that something is wrong. When I flail when I land my left leg, my brain doesn't need to give me a gentle ping. It screams at me at those times. Most often, it is a quiet "ping" letting me know that I am not in balance.

I want to be in balance. I want the pinging to stop. That's not polish--that is feeling back to normal.

Zumba! & Front Row Divas

Two weeks ago, I went to my first Zumba class. My friend Jeanette teaches Zumba, so I asked her which class I should take. She recommended a class with Daren at Community Fitness on Roosevelt. She said he is upbeat yet his classes are relatively low impact, which is exactly what I wanted for my first class after recovering from my ACL tear and surgery last year.

Aerobic classes used to be my main form of exercise before I had kids. After Claire Adele was born, I took an aerobics class three times a week. Once the Boy was born, I had a hard time squeezing in classes so I would ride my bike instead. Once in a while, I'd take a ballet or tap class, but those only lasted for a few weeks.

Since I've torn my ACL, I've wanted to take an aerobics class. I was worried that I wouldn't be agile enough. A few months ago, Jason gave me some agility exercises, and I felt great. I was slow, the exercises loosened up my knee.

The challenge of an exercise class is that there are other people in it. With all of my cardio machine exercises, I could go at my own pace and stop when I wanted to. I could do that in a group class, but that is not the point of a group exercise class. The point of a group exercise class is peer pressure: everyone keeps going even though they are tired and sweaty. Everyone else is doing it! You can do it, too!

My knee was still kind of stiff and I didn't want to be the one person two steps behind for the whole class. Again, peer pressure. I didn't want to be the one person off from the rest of the group. The steps are relatively simple and repeated often. Most people should be able to keep up. If not, go back to the cardio room where you can watch television while you exercise!

But hey ho! I did it! I took Daren's class and it was great. (I took two classes a week apart just to make sure the first one wasn't a fluke.) Zumba is just like old-fashioned aerobics from the 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's, but they changed the music to Latin Dance, added a few hip and shoulder shakes, and gave it a new name.

The women in the class seemed to welcome all types and abilities. There was a wide range of ages, from mid-thirties to a woman who had to be at least seventy. None of the women in the class were worried about my performance. They were either too tired and sweaty to notice, or they were too busy trying to keep up with steps. Or, if they were like me, they were having a Walter Mitty hour of pretending they were in a nightclub in a tropical city dancing the night away, not in the middle of soggy Seattle before lunch. How come we all showed up wearing exercise clothes and not slinky dresses and heels? Why teach the class at noon and not ten at night? Where was the bar? Shouldn't we be tossing back sangria and not Nuun water? Seriously, someone needs to rethink this. Regardless of my new ideas of how to exercise, I checked off another goal for my ACL recovery: dancing. Yay! It took longer than I would have liked, but I made it.

After the first class, Jeannette and I talked with a few other women after the first class and I heard a term I never heard before: front row divas. Those are the women who know all the moves, know how to dance, and show off by staying in the front row. How come I've never heard this term before when I've taken a million aerobics classes before? Front row divas can't be exclusive to Zumba, can they?

I didn't stand in the front row for the first or second classes. I stood in the second row. I had always thought the I liked to stay near the front so I could see the instructor better, right? There was no way I was going to stand in the back row. There was no point in that. Then it occurred to me: I had been a front row diva in my former lives, back at Lakeshore Athletic Club, at the YMCA in St. Louis. I wasn't intentionally a diva but I stood in the front so I wouldn't be distracted by people who were two steps behind, who couldn't keep up with the simple choreography. I wanted a clear shot of myself in the mirror so I could see if I was doing the steps right. Did that make me a diva? Yes, yes it did.

I am not a diva in other areas of my life, at least I don't think so. Yet, my dancing "divaness" prevented me from going to the class earlier, until I knew I had a 98% chance of keeping up. I needed to stand that in the middle of class, hold my own and not hold anyone back. Would it have been better if my ego didn't get in the way, if I didn't care if I was two steps behind or moved like Frankenstein? Probably. But then I wouldn't be a diva.

My Left Knee: Prologue

Hello readers: I am creating a book about recovering from my ACL injury. Here is the a draft of the prologue to the book. -- Lauren

* * * * * 

It is not like my heart was broken—literally or metaphorically—but still this was tough. It wasn’t a permanent injury, either: people heal from torn ACLs all of the time. I wasn’t examining my mortality like I would with a cancer diagnosis, but I was contemplating how my lack of mobility impacted my ability to function. I felt like I had to put my brain on hold for months while I took care of my body. It was a challenge.

My initial injury from a skiing accident was bad enough that I couldn’t walk for almost a month without crutches, a knee brace, or both. After the surgery to repair my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)—the short ligament that connects the kneecap to the thigh bone, I was back in the brace and on crutches for weeks. Even after I could technically “walk,” I wasn’t very good at it. My gait was off, I was incredibly slow, and I couldn’t walk very far without my leg revolting, begging me to slow down or stop. The trivia of my old life—making breakfast, walking down stairs, and bathing—suddenly became the main event. After my injury and during my recovery, I saw life through the eyes of a person with a disability. For months, my biggest worry was if I could cross the street before the traffic light changed. At times, it seemed like I would never get better, but I did.

This is a survival story of sorts. Unlike Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, I didn’t go to faraway lands for my uncomfortable journey. I mostly stayed on my couch icing and elevating my leg when I wasn’t at the gym. My enemy wasn’t an Orc, but my own body. Unlike Sir Ernest Shackleton combating the Antarctic Ocean, my hostile environment was my home. The twenty-three steps to my house were like icebergs crashing into my vessel, making it both dangerous and onerous for me to leave my house.

There are worse things that can happen to people other than not being able to move, and yet for me, there was something primally disturbing about it. In modern times, we have wheelchairs, ramps and the American with Disabilities Act (ADA). I don’t need to outrun a bear or lion or chase prey for dinner, but what if a fire broke out in my home or there was a mass shooting in a shopping mall: how would I escape? How could I dodge a car backing out in a parking lot if I couldn’t run? As long as I had limited mobility, I felt mildly unsafe, and that was not a comfortable feeling.

The month before my skiing crash, I ran for school board and lost after a year of campaigning. Every day during the campaign, my calendar was full. When I hurt my knee, I was in a post-election lull with very little to do. After I hurt my knee, I had even less to do, which I was surprised was possible. Countless people who struggle with the inability to move lead interesting and productive lives. I was not one of them. Two major unpleasant and unexpected side effects of my injury were isolation and boredom.

Before I had my skiing crash, I had imagined that life with an injury or major illness would be a time to slow down from day-to-day stress, ponder what is important in life, read great books, watch great movies, and find inner peace. If I couldn’t find inner peace, then it would be time to be pampered like a princess. When I was in elementary school, friends of mine were lucky enough to break bones, have their tonsils out or get the chicken pox. I had none of those experiences. Dee Dee had a party when she broke her arm. She sat on the couch wrapped in an afghan while we sat around her in a circle and gave her presents. When Lisa had her tonsils out, she got ice cream every meal and got to miss a week of school. While I knew it wasn’t all fun to be sick, there was certainly an upside.

I should have known better. As a parent, I know that when a child is ill, parents do everything possible to make their child comfortable and/or distracted. Instead of this being a time of ease and introspection, I was learning to walk, ride a bike, climb stairs, hop, jump, swim, and run. W. Timothy Gallwey writes in The Inner Game of Tennis about Self 1, the talking and thinking part of our minds, and Self 2, the muscle memory “doing” part of our minds. All of the actions and activities with my legs that used to be automatic now needed to be relearned. My Self 1 had to step in and guide the way because the muscles that Self 2 relied on stopped working.

Unlike the flu where you lie in bed until you feel better, I had to work to get better. My new job was to rehabilitate my knee with the help of the University of Washington’s Sports Medicine Clinic. Getting better involved twice a week physical therapy appointments plus an hour or more of exercises every day. Their goal was to return me to sport, in my case, skiing. My goal was to move without limitations. If I wanted to ski, I could ski. If I wanted to dance, I could dance. If I wanted to play tennis, hike, climb stairs or walk my dog, I could play tennis, hike, climb stairs and walk my dog. I didn’t think this was too much to ask. I was forty-six at the time—too young to permanently assign myself to be a spectator and not a participant.

You might be reading this book because you tore your ACL, or maybe your spouse or child did. Perhaps you are a physical therapist who wants to know more about your patients’ life outside of your office. My experience may be different than yours. I am a middle-aged woman with two teenage kids and aging parents. I am married to a doctor, but I am not a doctor, a nurse or anything related to medicine. You might be a young athlete or an old couch potato. You might be curious to read this book to compare your experience to mine. In some areas, I was better than average. In others, worse.

Please note that the research-based protocols and milestones may have changed since the time this was written. For example, a few years before my surgery, continuous motion machines were in vogue. Now they are not. Treatments evolve, and sometimes you will get caught in the middle of those changes. While I can’t imagine what your experience will be like, I can say ice became my new best friend during my recovery. I don’t think human anatomy will evolve that much in a few years such that ice won’t be an effective way to reduce swelling.

I have several friends who tore their ACLs before I did. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on with them before or after their surgeries, probably because they didn’t leave their homes for a few months. After I had torn my ACL, I asked them tons of questions about the recovery process. They all had massive amnesia.

“When did you get out of the brace?” I had asked Michelle before I had my surgery.

“I think it was around a month or so. Maybe six weeks. Maybe eight. I don’t remember,” she said. She didn’t understand this was the most urgent question I had.

“When were you able to walk again without crutches?” I’d ask Greta.

“Ahhh….” She couldn’t remember.

I wanted answers and information on what it was like and how they survived. They were not helpful.

My physical therapist, Evan, was also not forthcoming with information. He is a one-day-at-a-time guy, giving me information on a need-to-know basis, whereas I wanted to know everything I was going to go through in the next year right now.

This book started out as a blog where I would track the ups and downs of my recovery. I figured out that I, too, would have massive amnesia. Amnesia can be a good thing—it helps you to forget your misery so you can move on. I didn’t want to forget, so I wrote everything down. I wanted to look back and remember and say, “Look how far I’ve come!”

This book isn’t about how I found spiritual enlightenment through an injury. I was too focused on survival to achieve self-actualization. It is about how I embraced reading People magazine on the exercise bike at the gym and watching television during the day while doing leg lifts. My saving grace wasn’t an appreciation of how much my health and family meant to me. My salvation came from the endorphins I got from forty-five minutes of cardiovascular exercise every day.

As a lapsed Catholic, I welcomed the suffering. These were my forty days in the desert, minus the crucifixion at the end. Suffering gave me the motivation to do my exercises so I could escape the miserableness of limited mobility.

The ups and downs of healing were real, and a continuous part of the process. I remember years ago riding my bike on the Tour of the Mississippi River Valley, (a.k.a. The TOMRV). The ride from Davenport to Dubuque, Iowa and back had one stretch of fifteen miles of roller hills. I call them roller hills because riding them was like riding a roller coaster. I would pedal downhill as hard as I could in my highest gears, and the momentum and speed would lift me up over the next hill. This repeated itself again and again for miles. It was exhilarating. This reminded me of my recovery minus the speed, momentum, and exhilaration. As soon as I made it over one hurdle in my recovery, I would be so pleased with myself. Then I would meet the next hill and start a new climb. Before I went into surgery, my dad told me, “It is all uphill from here. But when you get to the top, you will be in really great shape.”

I hope you find this book helpful on your path to recovery. Heal well!

Underdoing It

Jack, the Boy and I went skiing Sunday with another family. The mom is recovering from an injury, as I am. Katrina and I spent all day on the green slopes where we learned to ski again while the boys went to the terrain park and practiced jumping. The husbands/dads skied black runs.

It was a good day. Katrina skis slower than me, if that is humanly possible. This was fine with me. I was glad not to be holding anyone back.

The best part of skiing again went unnoticed until Sunday: I was wearing ski boots, ski pants and a helmet in the lodge. In the handful of times I drove the Boy to ski, I sat in the lodge in my hiking boots and jeans, jealous of the other moms skiing. I don't think they noticed me, but I noticed them. How could I not notice the empty lodge in the morning filling at 11:30 with people coming in for an early lunch, staying packed until 1:30, and then having a slow flow of hot cocoa and coffee drinkers for the rest of the afternoon. 

I was happy to stay on the green runs Sunday mainly because my legs were tired from working out so much last week. I stretched myself on my weight lifting (150 pounds on the leg press) on Thursday, and paid for it on Friday and Saturday with sore and stiff legs. I am used to being flexible, and when I am stiff I feel out of place, not like myself. 

Now that I have started skiing, I am starting to take my workouts more seriously. I have a purpose, a reason to be in shape other than being in shape for its own sake. I feel like I need to workout, to lift weights, to do my home strengthening exercises regularly. Before, I had been doing my exercises, but I was underdoing it. I would stay in the safe zone, not pushing myself too hard fearing I'd get hurt or sore. Ironically, my extra workouts to get me into shape to ski have made me kind sore and weary, which makes me hesitant to ski. It keeps me conservative on the slopes, afraid to try anything too challenging, steep or bumpy. Even though I am skiing conservatively, I feel like I am on track to go on a ski vacation with the family in the future.

I've never been a slacker or an underachiever, or so I thought. I shouldn't be so hard on myself. The workouts right after my surgery were hard and I needed to go slow. It was hard to judge when I was ready to start making things harder for myself, which is why I had a physical therapy team to push me along. I could have stopped going to physical therapy months ago, but I wanted to learn to run. I needed to push myself to do that. I wanted to become more agile, so they added agility exercises for me. I wanted to ski, so they tested my strength.

I had been underdoing my workouts for the past few months. Even though I was lifting weights and gaining strength, I wasn't lifting as much as I could. It took me skiing a few times to recognize that I could push myself harder than I had been. It wasn't that I was slacking as much as reaching a plateau. I needed a nudge, a push down the mountain, to get me to advance.

My New Trainer

My friend Carla read my blog about my needing a push to exercise. After she had read it, she sent me an email saying she would be my new trainer.

"I am your trainer asking if you did your exercises today," she asked.

"I did!" I replied. I had to after I wrote that blog post about it. Yesterday, I did my exercises while the Boy watched. He put down his phone to chat with me. I told him these were exercises to get me into shape for skiing, and he tried a few himself. Today, I ran and lifted weights, in case anyone was wondering.

I heard a story about who had a writing buddy who held her accountable for put words on paper. Every Friday, the first woman would send the second woman the updated chapters of her novel that she wrote that week. The second women always wrote back, "Good job! Keep up the good work!" The first completed a novel that was eventually published. It turns out the second woman skimmed the first woman's work, and thought she writing was weak, but she never said anything except "Good job! Keep up the good work!"

Now Carla is my workout accountability partner. Yay! Hopefully having someone to report to will keep me honest and inspired.

Last Physical Therapy Appointment (Or Not)

Yesterday, I went into what I thought would be my last physical therapy appointment for my knee with Evan. God forbid I have to go back into PT in the future for a bad back or shoulder, but if I need to go, I will go. I've seen first hand the miracles of physical therapy, and I am sold on its value to humankind.*

It has been a year since my surgery, and I've skied twice. Not once--twice. I had to prove it wasn't a fluke that I skied, and that I wasn't afraid so afraid that I would do it once and then say "I'm done." In fact, I am inspired to go to Whistler. They have the best green runs. The runs are long, and there are several runs off the same lift for variety.

I digress. When I walked into my appointment, I saw the same handful of receptionists I've seen almost every week--often twice a week--since January 2016. I told them "This is my last appointment!" They cheered and shared my joy at my completion. I was so confident it was going my last appointment, I almost pre-wrote this blog post.

When I saw Evan, I told him I've skied twice since I was last at physical therapy two weeks ago. He winced a little. "Skiing is the highest risk activity of tearing your ACL. You have a big lever on your foot that can twist your knee." I know.

He had me repeat the jumping tests to test my leg strength. I passed the triple jump and the triple cross jump. For both of those tests, my injured leg was 95% and 96% of my healthy leg. The goal to return to sports is 90%. My problem was with the single jump. There, I was only 77%. While my single jump was better than my previous test a few weeks earlier, it wasn't close to 90%.

At my last appointment, Evan commented that this was an unusual set of jumping results. Most people are closest on the single jump, and further on the triple jumps.

"This tells me your balance is good because triple jumps require balance. The lower percentage on the single jumps tells me you need more strength. I wouldn't let you play soccer yet. I might let you go back to practice at a low level, but you aren't game ready."

I don't play soccer, so cool, right? I changed the subject. "What do I need to do to maintain my leg, so I'll be ready to ski?" I asked.

"I've been giving you skiing maintenance exercises all along," he said, smiling. "That was the goal." This was good news. I wouldn't have to start anything new--I would just have to maintain.

"I would like to see your strength improve, though," Evan said. "You really need to work on that."

"Do I need another appointment, or am I done?" I asked. My tone and expression showed that I hoped I was done. I don't know why I so badly wanted to be done considering I don't mind it. I figured my goal was to ski, and I skied; therefore, I should be done.

And yet... I have a friend, Daphne, who stopped physical therapy after a few months after she tore her ACL. She could walk, so she thought she was fine. She went cross country skiing a few weeks ago, and her injured leg pooped out and gave up. It was a cautionary tale for me. Not having a fully functional leg scares the crap out of me. After I started running, I started using physical therapy more as training to get me in shape for skiing, dancing, yoga, running and whatnot. The Sports Medicine clinic's goal is to return people to sports, not just walk without a limp.

"It is your choice," Evan said. "If you think you can build up the strength on your own, you are done. If you need the pressure of not disappointing me, then you probably need another appointment."

Dang. After a year of working with me, Evan knows me too well. He knows I need the push, the check-in, the reporting back to authority. While I waffled, he gave me a new printout of my exercises.

I am not a person who is naturally or intrinsically motivated to be physically fit. I don't dislike exercise, but I was never a person to stand in front of a mirror and admire my tight buns and buff legs, or likewise to dismay at my flabby arms. I don't think I'd be comfortable if I were so overweight it impacted my ability to participate in activities of daily living, but I am not uncomfortable settling into my middle-aged spread. I'd rather read a book or work on a project than exercise. I'd rather eat good food than being hungry all of the time. Would I be happier if I were in better shape? Possibly, but I am not going to sacrifice chocolate for it or spend all of my free time at the gym. I am happy living inside my head.

Which is all why I need a second physical therapy appointment. I wouldn't do it on my own. Now, I do barely enough. I can make it to the YMCA to run, bike and use the elliptical several times a week, but doing my home exercises every other day becomes once a week if that.

So I have another appointment in a month. In the meantime, I will have to adjust to keeping up with these exercises, doing it on my own without a weekly or every other week check-in, where I am the only person who knows if I am doing my exercises or not.

When I was a kid, I took ballet classes. I loved the flow that would come after a long workout. I loved moving my body to the music. I remember one dance class when I was about ten years old, where I asked myself if I could dance forever, make it my job. Did I want to pursue being a professional dancer? It was as if the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter was placed on my head. Instead of asking which house I wanted to be in, it asked did I love dance enough to do it more than anything else?

The answer was no. Even though I loved it, I wondered how I could live an intellectual life and be a dancer. I couldn't imagine my life without going to college, without having a strong life of the mind. Even though now I daydream about being a professional dancer, I don't think I would have traded away my college degree for going to ballet school.

This question I asked myself when I was ten years old is relevant to me now. I know myself well enough that I'd rather sit down and pound out a blog post before I would choose to exercise. That when I am hungry, I'd rather eat than workout beforehand. Yet, I know keeping my knee in shape is a priority. Not being able to move would also be untenable. Given the choice of exercising when my knee is "good enough" and reading a book, I'd probably pick the book nine times out of ten.

So I am going back to physical therapy in a month. I know I need to do it, but I know myself that I need someone to hold me accountable for myself until I can develop the habit to do it myself.

* I can't say mankind. I am feeling down on the patriarchy lately.

Skiing!!! Part II

This isn't a joke like my blog post from in December when I said I went skiing when I really didn't. This time it is real, as noted by the picture of my snow covered skis. As my kids might say, this time, the shit is real.

I have a friend who says when we are stuck in middle age, we need to think about doing things that make us proud of ourselves. In some ways, it makes obvious sense: don't do things you will be ashamed of. In other ways, it seems like an odd thing to think about middle age. Do we really need to worry about self-esteem? Isn't self-esteem for kids? As I got off the ski lift yesterday for the first time in more than a year, I found a new mantra: I am proud of myself.

It was President's Day. I didn't want to ski Sunday because I feared there might be regularly scheduled lessons and I didn't want to share the bunny hill with 150 kids learning to ski or snowboard for the first time. No thanks. Monday was quiet. While I was getting my brace on, Jack bought me a lift ticket. I told him to get me a beginner ticket--only good for green runs--, but he got me a full lift ticket which was about $20 more expensive. He was more optimistic than I was. I felt like a nervous bride with a supportive father: I knew I could back out at any time. Even though I had my skis, my brace and everything else, I could still bail if I felt like it.

I thought I'd start slow on the Magic Carpet. When I saw the long line, I almost skipped it and went straight to the chairlift. Jack said, "You had better try this first."

I had never been on a Magic Carpet before. When I learned to ski back in 7th grade, we side-stepped up the hill to start. After that, we would take tow ropes up the beginner hill. The guy at the top of the Magic Carpet looked at me funny. I was the only person on the Magic Carpet not wearing rental skis who wasn't accompanying a small child. 

The Magic Carpet isn't that easy. It is easier than a tow rope, which is harder than a chairlift. Tow ropes require timing, balance and the ability to keep your skis in the tracks. If you can make it up a hill on a tow rope, you probably are coordinated enough to make it down. The Magic Carpet requires balance. On a chairlift, you at least get to sit. 

When I got to the top of the Magic Carpet, I was worried I'd have to dodge fallen snowboarders or obstinate preschoolers who were tired, hungry, and cold, or lost from their group. I turned left to avoid a dozen seated beginning snowboarders sitting on the right side of the carpet. I took off my goggles and wiped off the condensation three times before making the thirty-yard trek to the bottom. My pizza wedge was awesome. I completely avoided facing my body down the fall line, only pointing myself in the direction I was heading. 

"You've done Dave Murray Downhill!" Jack cheered me on, reminding me of the long, black run I've done at Whistler. "Ready for Little Thunder?" Nope. One more time on the Magic Carpet. As I was going downhill, I wondered if there was a way I could practice skiing without actually skiing. Does such a thing exist?

As Jack and I were waiting in line, we saw a little girl with a snowboard crying, "Daddy, no no! Don't make me go!" She pleading, not whining. I guessed that dad was a big snowboarder, and wanted his daughter to learn so they could spend every weekend on the slopes.

"That's the way to instill a lifelong love of the sport," Jack said sarcastically. Jack knows better than to drag an unwilling kid up a mountain.

"That kid needs some hot chocolate," I said. 

I got on the ski lift just fine. Even more remarkable was when I got off of it. My muscle memory which failed me terribly on the Magic Carpet fabulous when I got off the lift. I was careful, but my skis led me to the right place, and I was able to turn and go exactly where I wanted to go. I was able to dodge a fallen snowboarder and a few very slow skiers who didn't clear the offload area fast enough. I was surprised that auto-pilot kicked in so easily. It was as if my subconscious told my conscious to shut up and let it handle getting off the lift. Later Jack told me he was worried that I might freak out at the top of the chair lift, not get off, and ride back down. He wanted me to try to Magic Carpet first to get my ski legs back.

At the top of Little Thunder, I cleared the condensation from my goggles three times, stalling. Once I started down the hill, I started to cry. Why was I up here? What was the point? What was I trying to prove? Did I really need to do this, even though I had been going to physical therapy for a year for this moment? It was too late to change my mind. I already at the altar and had said "I do" to the mountain. I was committed to getting down not via Ski Patrol on a sled. As I went down, I started my mantra for the day "I am proud of myself." I smiled, and I really was proud of myself.

The first turn was torture. I would have to bear most of my weight on one leg. My mind regressed to when I was a 7th grader at Perry Middle School on the Wednesday night ski bus to Snow Trails, and we learned to turn by lifting one leg off the ground. My brain wasn't so sure my body could handle it, but my legs were fine even with the not insignificant additional weight of the ski boots and skis.

I made a few turns, and relaxed. I looked crappy compared to old form when I could fly down the runs off the 7th Heaven Express, but I shouldn't compare my current self to my old one, for better or worse. My old self a year ago was getting ready for surgery. My old self last spring couldn't ride a bike on the road. My old self last fall couldn't run.

I made it down. And I wanted to do it again. After the fourth time, I remembered to face down the fall line. I practiced planting my poles to turn, even though the terrain wasn't steep enough to warrant that much effort. It snowed a few inches while we there, so the snow on the slope was perfectly soft and fresh. The icy patches that were there in the morning were gone before lunch.

Jack took this picture of me at the bottom--and very flat part--of the run.

By the end of the day, I was having fun. I remembered why I liked to ski and was grateful for all of the work I did for the past year to bring me back. Jack wanted me to try a blue run, but I wasn't mentally ready. I remembered my orthopedic surgeon telling me to stick to the cruisers, whatever a cruiser means to me. No moguls, no ungroomed runs. Even though I was wearing my brace, I didn't want to tempt the ACL protection gods. 

There is some bittersweetness in my return to the mountain. In the past two seasons, my kids have gotten significantly better than me. The Boy loves his terrain "steep and deep." When the powder is packed down, he is in the terrain park, practicing jumping, 360 turns and skiing backward. Claire Adele loves Alpental, a place for advanced skiers. Jack has learned how to ski there, too. While I was re-learning to walk, they were on the double blacks. I will probably never ski the same runs with them again except when they are humoring mom. 

I went back to my mantra. "I am proud of myself." Someday, I can be the grandma who takes the little ones on the Magic Carpet, hangs with them on the green runs, and buys them hot chocolate when they get too cold, while their parents shred the gnar on the double blacks.

Ski Brace

Thursday afternoon, I got a ski brace. You'd think this would have made my blog nano-seconds after I got it, with me typing on my phone in the Sports Medicine parking garage. I would post a picture of me wearing the brace, but my leg looks like an ice cream cone with a scoop of cottage cheese on top.

"Most legs have soft tissue at the top," said Brian, the brace guy, as I complained about my flabby upper thigh.

Yes, the brace was--and is--awesome. When I put it on, I felt like the bionic woman. I was a little worried I wouldn't like it because it is a brace and I wore a brace for many weeks after I initially tore my ACL and weeks after my surgery. That brace was a big clunky monster. This one is light and sleek and designed for sports.

"People complain all of the time that the post-surgical brace slides down their leg too much," said Brian. "Those braces are designed to keep your leg immobilized. This brace is designed to help you move."

I walked around with the brace in the office. For the first time in more than a year, my left did not feel inferior to my right. It was amazing. I had a friend who tore her ACL around the same time I did. She said she went cross country skiing and went downhill.

"My leg started to give out," she said. "It just gave up."

I told that story to Brian, the brace guy. "The brace will give you stability, and stability will give you strength."

That makes sense.

"The brace is really kind of a placebo," he continued. "It isn't going to make you stronger, but it will make you feel more secure."

Brain's comments made me think about what Evan said the last time I saw him. The body and the brain love symmetry. When the brain doesn't sense symmetry, it gives the body a "ping" saying something isn't right. When I wear the brace, my brain doesn't give me the "ping," the alert that says "Danger! Avoid using this leg!" This brace brings me a sense of symmetry. Even if it isn't 100% real, it is close enough, and it should work.

Before I hit the slopes, I am supposed to wear the brace walking around to break it in. I wore it out of the office Thursday and wore it Saturday and today. It does take a while to get it on and perfectly adjusted. Unlike my surgical brace, this one needs all new adjustments each time I put it on. It takes practice to get it on correctly each time.

While I was thrilled when I first wore the brace, I am growing nervous about skiing. It is one thing to wear the brace while walking the dog, it will be another to wear it while I am getting on and off the chair lift. I am considering just riding the magic carpet the first time I go out, maybe not even making it to the chair lift.

We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Symmetry and a Brace

I met with my orthopedic surgeon yesterday morning, followed by physical therapy. I sat on the exam table, and he picked up his my foot and shook it about.

"That is a strong leg," he told the medical student while nodding at me. "It seems stable. How do you feel?"

"I feel stronger than I did before the accident," I said. This is probably the strongest my leg has been since before I had the Boy.

"I think you can ski at the end of this season," he said. I didn't even ask. He volunteered it. "Stick to the cruisers and the groomers. No moguls, no black diamonds. Easy stuff."

"What about a brace?" I asked.

"It wouldn't make you bulletproof, but it will help with stability," he said. "Stick to easy runs where you have little chance of falling."

"Should I take a lesson before I go back out?"

He looked at me funny. "How good of a skier were you before?" he asked as if I were a total hack. I paused, and he replied, "I don't think you need a lesson." I thinking a lesson would be like a different version of the physical therapy I've been to in the past year. I'll wait and see.

After my appointment, I went to see Evan for physical therapy. I told him I am feeling fine, but I can still "feel my knee," whatever that means.

"Your brain expects symmetry," Evan said. "When something is off, it sends a message, and your brain starts paying attention. Changes in symmetry alert your brain to possible injury or illness. You will probably keep feeling this until your leg gets all of its strength back."

That explains a lot. It also means I have more work to do. I need to keep lifting weights, stretching, running, and doing the elliptical.

One of the tests for me to ski is to do a jumping test and see if my left leg is close to as strong as my right leg. At home, I put tape on the floor after each jump so I can ballpark if I am close or not. Monday, I jumped further with my left than my right. It was a miracle. I was hoping I would do as well in physical therapy where it counts. Jumping in my kitchen is like saying I can run a four-minute mile while on the jogging path, and then actually doing it in front of real judges with stopwatches and an accurately measured mile. One is not real, and one is. Practice is necessary, but performance counts.

I went to lift weights while he calculated my percentages. "You are at 92% for the triple jump and 88% for the side jumps." This was very good news. It means I am within range of skiing again.

After Evan, I met with the brace guy to get measured for a skiing brace. I am freaking out as I write this. I was measured for a skiing brace.

"What if I gain or lose weight?" I asked. "Will it still fit?"

"There is a two-inch margin so you will be fine," he said. "If you build more muscle, the brace will fit better." I am assuming he meant that the brace squishes and slides against pudginess.

"When will it be ready?" I asked. I was stalling, thinking maybe I could wait a week or a month or year or two to think about if I really wanted to ski again.

"Two weeks," he said. "Come in after your next physical therapy appointment, and you can try on the brace, and we can make all of the adjustments."

Wow. As the Boy would say, the shit is getting real. Do I really want to ski again? To get back on the horse that bucked me off, kicked me to the ground and tore my ACL? Am I crazy? I can hear my dad tease me when I was a kid and had to make a decision: "Do you really really really really really want to do this?" It is one thing to think about skiing in the distant future, and another thing to think about skiing in five weeks.

I told the Boy during dinner that I can ski this season, and he gave me a high five. Later that night, he asked me again if I was really going to try to ski in March. The Boy has a teenage memory, which means he is highly annoyed if he is told anything twice.

"Really?" he said. "You'll be skiing this year?" double-checking to make sure he heard right and wasn't hallucinating.

"It depends on the snow, but I am going to try," I said. Am I going on auto-pilot, skiing just because it is a goal, something to mark off the list in my recovery so I can say that I am done, healed, finished? Do I need an ending, closure, and is getting back on the mountain it? What about cross-country skiing or snow-shoeing? Those are snow sports that could substitute for skiing like whitefish and red dye stands in from crab sometimes. I didn't ask those questions when Don measured my thigh.

This is getting real.

Yoga

This Thursday, I went back to yoga for the first time since I tore my ACL more than a year ago. My friend, Karb, teaches yoga in her home. I was signed up for her class last winter but had to cancel after my skiing accident.

This was the hardest yoga class I have ever been to. I had always thought I had been flexible, but I never realized how much that was true until I became inflexible. I could have gone back to yoga earlier, that wasn’t the reason I stalled in going back. Instead, I was too busy working on my cardio and strength that I didn’t have time for yoga and still ride the exercise bike forty-five minutes a day.

Before when I did yoga, I never felt much strain on my muscles except during the endurance poses. I could hold the plank pose for fifteen seconds without my body talking back. After a minute or two, my arms, back, and belly would ask when they could stop. Other than that, I was fine. Now, child’s pose takes work, and that is an easy, relaxing, chill position you are supposed to take when you are tired from holding Downward Dog. The easiest pose is Corpse pose, where you pretend you are dead.

It wasn’t just my injured leg that was a problem, it was the rest of me. My left leg was stronger than it was before. I could hold a one-legged standing pose for longer than I could before I tore my ACL. What surprised me was my arms got tired in Downward Dog. This was unusual. 

I realized I had become lopsided since my injury, and not only between the right side of my body and the left, but between my legs and everything else: my back, arms, and core. Now is the time to regain balance between the rest of my body and my legs.

It is interesting to look back on an injury and see repercussions that we didn't know were there. I suppose that is true for other parts of life, not just the physical part. I became more introverted, sitting at home reading books and quilting instead of socializing. I exercised alone, not going to yoga classes or walking Green Lake with a friend. As I've been healing, my social life and my inner life have been rebalancing, too. After the injury, I pulled into my head and had to learn to come back out.

Scene of the Accident

I took the Boy and one of his friends skiing today at Silver Fir, the place where I tore my ACL a little more than a year ago. I could have hooked the Boy up with a different friend whose dad was driving up, but the Boy had made plans with this other friend to ski today. These two boys talked amongst themselves and decided they could sucker one of out of four of their parents to drive them to the mountain. Since the friend’s parents are out of town and Jack was working, I drew the short straw and got to drive. (I didn't know I was the only one drawing a straw.) I could be sitting at home, drinking tea while working on a jigsaw puzzle or finishing a quilt.

Not that I mind sitting in the ski lodge. Skiing is a better use of the Boy’s time and a small investment in his mental health. Otherwise, he’d park his butt on the couch and surf the internet for hours. Skiing is nature and exercise therapy, plus social hour. It gives the teenage boy brain all sort of controlled experiences—the need for speed, taking risks, trying new and dangerous things, plus part of being part of a group of like-minded boys.

The last time I was at Silver Fir, I was dragged down the hill in a sled, unable to stand without my leg buckling. I am sitting in the lodge, looking at the lift line. I see the bench where I tried to stand after the Ski Patrol brought me to the bottom. The bottom of the hill looks steeper than I remember. I had thought the bottom of the Silver Fir run was practically flat. Now it looks too steep.

When we first arrived at the Silver Fir parking lot, I was excited, as excited as I might have been if I were skiing myself. I am glad I wasn’t tempted to bring my own skis today, but being here inspires me to try on my boots when I get home and practice walking around in the heavy footwear.

I am inspired to continue my physical therapy and work on my strength. In some ways, my legs feel stronger now than they have in the past ten years, perhaps since I’ve had kids. I might have had some residual strength in my thighs after Claire Adele was born. Before I had kids, Jack and I would bicycle as a hobby, taking long-distance rides. Two years ago, we brought our bikes to Victoria, British Columbia, and rode from the town up the Galloping Goose Trail to Sook. My legs were in decent shape after that weekend.

Most importantly, this trip to Silver Fir inspires me to try on my ski pants, the scariest part of starting ski season: will they fit, or will I need to go up a size?

I was talking to the boy and his friend that I might be psychologically if not physically ready to ski in the next month. “I won’t do Silver Fir as my first run,” I said. “I’ll probably want to start at Holiday or at West. Maybe I’ll even start on the magic carpet before I ride a lift.” The subtext of this conversation was when I start again, I will not be on the most challenging parts of the mountain. He should be glad I am driving him up now, and gracious when I start skiing again.

“Of course,” said the Boy. He seemed to understand.

The bench by the ski rack was where they brought the sled when I came down the mountain.

Horoscope, and Jealousy or Just Left Out?

I was reading Elle magazine this morning over breakfast (egg, bacon and cheese sandwich on a biscuit) when I came across my horoscope. "Zip up your puffer and hit the powder" read the first line.

Oy. Thanks, Elle. I have a few more steps to finish before I zip up my puffer and hit the powder.  As you all may know, I tore my ACL winter skiing, had surgery and can't ski until at least the end of February. The rest of my family skis once a week, more during Winter Break. I normally like Elle and have been a subscriber for years. I wanted to scream and laugh and cry as I read this. I don't blame the magazine because they don't know. It was a good thing I was eating something amazingly delicious to wash away the pain.

I was talking to my physical therapist, Evan, last week. It told him my family was skiing and I was stuck at home or in the lodge. "It sounds like you are jealous," he said, switching between physical therapist and regular therapist. I suppose physical therapists need to be somewhat like regular therapists to motivate and inspire their patients, as well as to listen to their woes. Sometimes I have a lot of woes.

Am I jealous, feeling left out, or both? I don't know if jealous is the exact word. I don't subscribe to skiing magazines or watch skiing videos. I don't aspire to ski beyond easy blacks or blues. Jack says there are people who take "bike walks" which is a leisurely bike ride where you look at houses and coast along. Jack doesn't think it is really biking until your heart rate is at 80% max and you are constantly pedaling. To make an analogy to skiing, I am a "ski walker," happy to go at my own pace and take in the scenery as I go down. I stop and smell the snowflakes. I don't need to go full blast to get the adrenaline rush. I get enough adrenaline starting at the top of the hill. I don't need to feel afraid to have fun.

Yet, given the choice between hanging out in a coffee shop or skiing, I'd ski. Given the choice between biking and skiing, I'd ski. Before my accident, I used to find a friend and we'd ski during the week when the lift lines were super short. I was totally fine skiing without my family. So maybe I am a little jealous.

I also feel left out. My kids and husband come back from skiing and I get a report on the conditions, runs, and crowds. I wish I were up there with them, to a certain extent. They are running on the black diamonds, and I would be on the blues. I'd be holding them back, making them ski at Snoqualmie Central instead of Alpental. Or I would find a blue run at Alpental that I could manage without killing myself, and do it over and over again.

It doesn't matter if Evan and I ever will get the bottom of if I feel jealous or left out. He got to the point which was starting me on skiing exercises so I'll be ready one day to zip up my puffer and hit the powder.

Strength Training and 40 pounds

I went to physical therapy yesterday and Evan talked to me about getting back to skiing. I can walk, bike and run, so in the grand scheme of life, I am pretty functional and I should be glad. The only part I don't like is when Jack and the kids go skiing every weekend and I can't. I don't want to begrudge them skiing because it is a great sport and probably the best way to spend a day in the snow. It involves all kinds of happy and healthy endorphins, which are according to Wikipedia "a morphine-like substance originating from within the body." Fresh air, going fast, great views, learning new skills and improving existing ones? Who doesn't want that?

Evan said while it is is great that I am running, I need to continue to build strength. "People think they ski on both legs, but there are times when times when you are bearing all of your weight on one leg. Your left leg really needs to be strong if you want to ski."

Hmm. Given the choice between lifting weights and running, I will chose running. I don't consciously make this decision, but instead I go to the YMCA, run first and then think "I have to..." a) get back home, b) run an errand, c) take a nap, etc. before I go to the weight room.

"How strong?" I asked Evan.

"You should be able to lift 150% of your body weight with both legs up and bad* leg down, 100% of your weight on your bad leg," said Evan.

Dang, I thought. I thought about how much I weigh now and how much I weighed before the Boy was born.

"How about if I lose forty pounds?" I said. That means I will have to lift forty pounds less on the single leg lift and sixty pounds less on the double leg lift.

Evan nodded. "That is one way to do it. Every pound you lose takes three pounds of pressure off your knee." I can't figure out the math on that, but Evan has a degree in this so I trust him.

While Evan thinks running isn't helping my strength, it actually is. Hopefully, I am losing a little pudge, which then means I will have less weight to lift. Win-win.

* He didn't say 'bad.' He used a nicer, more neutral medical term.

Skiing!!!

I went skiing yesterday. It was awesome. It has been more than nine months since my surgery, and I figured, yeah, I am ready. I am ready to go. When I got there, I scoped out the Magic Carpet and saw five year olds out there. I can do this, I thought. No problem. Those kids are more flexible than I am, but I follow instructions better.  

I put on my boots. I was glad I had been lifting weights and doing strength exercises. I forgot how heavy ski boots are. Maybe my next pair will be lighter. I snapped my boots into the skis and slowly started. I stayed on flat ground, close to the Magic Carpet. I rode the magic carpet a few times. I was the oldest person on the carpet except for instructors and parents teaching their kids how to ski.

Evan, my physical therapist, suggested I might try snow boarding. I could, but I already know how to ski, and snow boarding would be a whole new skill set. Maybe next week.

The freakiest part was getting on the chair lift. The second freakiest part was getting off the chair lift. The Boy and his friend were there as I glided down the green run. The bad part about green runs is that there are lots of beginners and the snow is kind of crappy. This snow was soft, as it was warm near the bottom of the mountain. I heard it was icier on the higher runs.

Just kidding! I didn't ski yesterday. I am practicing my fiction skills. I did drive the Boy and one of his friends to the slopes yesterday. (Claire-Adele went to another ski area with her friend and the friend's dad.)

I got up early, picked up the Boy's friend, and drove to Snoqualmie. The roads had no restrictions, which was good. The morning before, it was snowing and chains were required. We have an all wheel drive to help get us over the pass, but there is always some Chevette out there that thinks it doesn't need chains. Or a 4WD pick-up with an empty bed spinning out of control. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with that.

I got the Boy his season pass and then went to the cafeteria, along with the other parents who don't ski.

Ugh. It was depressing.

All of the parents who don't ski sit in the seats that look out the windows and on the mountain. The tables and chairs aren't very comfortable, especially when you have to sit there from ten until three. There is a bar upstairs. I thought about going up there to see if they had more comfortable seating (they probably do) but I wasn't sure I wanted be in a bar at ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

In the end, it wasn't that bad. The resort doesn't have wifi, but I brought several magazines and a few books. The boys had a good time.

While I was in the lodge, I started thinking about what an odd sport skiing is. I can see how it probably got invented in the Swiss Alps where people needed to get around, and sleds were probably not practical for every situation. Think about it: people strap long sticks to the bottom of their feet and slide down a mountain. Not only is it weird, but people pay gobs of money for the privilege of doing this.

I suppose I will remember one day why it was fun when I get back on the mountain. It is like I have forgotten, like it doesn't exist any more for me except in an abstract way. It is as if I moved to a new country when I was small, and all I have left are vague memories of what my homeland was like.