chillow

I was jogging along a trail in the wooded hillside 10 minutes by car from our apartment this afternoon, watching the sun and shadows play with the rocks and roots in the hard dirt path when BLAM--I went flying. My iPod and headphones (which I hadn't been using at the moment) skidded one way, my sunglasses slid off the path (lost 'em) and my left knee and right elbow got incredibly intimate with the ground. They ground into the ground, actually, though after I pulled myself up I was relieved to see that my blood wasn't flowing freely (it must have been as stunned as I was). And that nothing was broken. Looked like I had a second elbow, though, and a second, lower knee, the way both sites ballooned from flat to bulbous in the space of just one fast fall.

The moment before I went down I recalled in vivid detail what it had felt like 11 years ago when I tripped and introduced my chin to a knife-sharp rock during a pre-college orientation backpacking trip . Wound up with 50 black stitches inside my cheek and down my chin, and a giant bandaid that stayed on through the first week of college. (How cool was I?) Until today I haven't been able to recall that pre-accident sensation. (Ah, there it is: the silver lining!)

The thought that made me most anxious was that strangers might try to help me on my one-mile jaunt back to the car. But the dozen or so folks I passed either didn't notice the three-inch swath of blood seeping through the skin on my leg or figured I was fine, since I was, actually, running. (How else to get back quickly?) I really didn't feel a thing--just self-conscious. Now, two hours later, of course, my arm and leg hurt like hell. I cried in the shower as I attempted to clean the dirt from my knee with a $10 bar of soap from my magazine editor days (freebies rule!) while my husband was scanning the aisles at Safeway for medical supplies. And to think that just yesterday I was telling him that I couldn't wait for a few dotty bruises on my leg to heal (no idea how they got there) so I could wear my cute summer skirts again. Hah! I feel just like a 10-year-old. Which is what I'd been planning to joke to strangers on the trail if they'd asked me, in alarm, if I was okay: "Oh, I'm fine," I'd chuckle, slowing down. "I just wanted to know what it felt like to be a kid again!" Now, if I could only channel my ridiculously high 10-year-old metabolism, and spend my recovery sucking on cold metal spoonful after spoonful of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream....