Left Neglected Part 27

"This is the one I'd like to start you on."

As I scan to the left, trying to locate Mike, his white teeth, and the ski sled he wants to start me on, I feel increasingly light-headed. I should've stayed in the lodge with my People magazine and my word searches. I should've gone home with my mother and taken a nap. But when I find him, he's not standing next to any of the ski sleds. He's in front of a snow-board. My panic sits down and quiets itself, but it remains skeptical and on alert and isn't one bit embarra.s.sed or apologetic for the false alarm.

From what little I know about s...o...b..ards, this one looks mostly normal. A metal hand railing is screwed into the board in front of the boot bindings, extending up to about waist height, reminding me of a grab bar. But otherwise, it looks like a regular s...o...b..ard.

"What do you think?" he asks.

"It's not horrible. But I don't understand why you think I'm a s...o...b..arder."

"You can't keep track of your left leg, right? So let's essentially get rid of it. We'll lock it in place next to your right leg on the board, and there you go, you don't have to drag it or lift it or steer it anywhere."

That does sound appealing.

"But how would I turn?"

"Ah, this is also why you're a s...o...b..arder. Skiing is about shifting balance left to right, but s...o...b..arding is shifting your balance back and forth."

He demonstrates, pushing his hips forward and then sticking his bottom out, bending his knees in both positions.

"Here, give me your hands, give it a try."

He faces me, grabs my hands, and holds my arms out in front of me. I try to copy what he did, but even without a mirror in front of me to see myself, I can tell that whatever I'm doing looks more like Martin Short imitating something s.e.xual than like someone s...o...b..arding.

"Sort of," he says, trying not to laugh. "Imagine you're squatting over a public toilet seat that you don't want to sit on. That's back. Then imagine you're a guy peeing for distance in the woods. That's front. Try it again."

Still holding on to his hands, I'm about to rock forward, but I freeze up, feeling funny about pretending to pee on Mike.

"Sorry, my description's a little graphic, but it works. Forward and up on your toes, back and sitting on your heels."

I give it another go. I send my right hip forward and then back, forward and then back. And, unlike when I move my right leg or my right hand, when I move my right hip, my left hip goes with it. Always. If this is how to steer a s...o...b..ard, then it seems as though I could do it.

"But what about stopping? How would I control my speed?"

"This rider bar here is for your balance, like how you're holding on to my hands now. But to begin with, it's also for one of us instructors to hold on to. If we go up today, I'll s...o...b..ard facing you, and I'll control how fast you go. When you've got your balance down, we'll transition you to one of these."

He shows me another s...o...b..ard. This one doesn't have a grab bar, and at first I don't notice anything special about it. Then Mike loops a black cord through a metal loop attached to one end of the board.

"Instead of me pushing against you from the front, I'll hold on to this tether from behind you to help regulate your speed."

I imagine a dog on a leash.

"And then, from there, you'll do it on your own."

He whips the tether out of the loop as if to say Tada! A normal s...o...b..ard!

"But how would I keep from crashing into other people on the trail? If I'm concentrating on anything, I can't see things on my left."

He smiles, recognizing that he's got me imagining myself on the mountain.

"That's my job until you can do it on your own. And when you try it without the rider bar, you can transition to using an outrigger if you want," he says, now holding up a ski pole with a small ski attached to the bottom. "This would give you an additional point of contact with the ground, like your cane does, offering you some extra stability."

"I don't know," I say.

I search around for another but, but I can't find any.

"Come on, let's give it a try. It's a beautiful day, and I'd love to get out there," he says.

"You said that my mother filled out most of my paperwork?" I say, turning over my last stone of possible resistance.

"Ah, yes. There are a couple of standard questions we always ask that only you can answer."

"Okay."

"What are your short-term winter sport goals?"

I think. As of a few minutes ago, my only goal for today was to go for a walk.

"Um, to s...o...b..ard down the hill without killing myself or anyone else."

"Great. We can accomplish that. And how about long-term goals?"

"I guess to s...o...b..ard without needing any help. And eventually, I want to ski again."

"Perfect. Now how about life goals? What are your short-term life goals?"

I don't quite see how this information would in any way affect my ability to s...o...b..ard, but I have a ready answer, so I offer it to him.

"To go back to work."

"What do you do?"

"I was the vice president of human resources for a strategy consulting firm in Boston."

"Wow. Sounds impressive. And what are your long-term goals?"

Before the accident, I'd been hoping to be promoted to president of human resources in the next two years. Bob and I were saving to buy a bigger house in Welmont with at least five bedrooms. We planned to hire a live-in nanny. But now, since the accident, those goals seem a little irrelevant, if not ridiculous.

"To get my life back."

"Alright, Sarah, I'm so glad you came in. You ready to go s...o...b..arding with me?"

Spent from all the unnecessary distress, my panic is now snuggled in a soft blanket and sleeping peacefully. Pre-accident me isn't jumping up and down about this idea, but she isn't arguing against it either. And Bob isn't here to weigh in. So it's up to me.

"Okay, let's do it."

MIKE PULLS ME BY THE rider bar onto the Magic Carpet lift, and we move, both standing on our s...o...b..ards, up the slight but steady incline of Rabbit Lane. The Magic Carpet is like a conveyor belt, and the people on it-mostly young children, a few parents, a couple of instructors, Mike and me-remind me of pieces of luggage at the airport or groceries at the supermarket riding along a ribbon of black rubber, waiting to be scanned.

I look around for Bob and Lucy, both wanting them to see me and praying that they don't. What is Bob going to think when he sees me on a handicapped s...o...b..ard? Will he think I've given in to my Neglect and given up? Have I given up? Is this accommodating or failing? Should I have waited until I'm recovered enough to ski like I used to? What if that never happens? Are my only two acceptable choices sitting in the booth in the lodge or skiing like I did before the accident, with nothing in between? What if someone from work is here for the weekend and sees me? What if Richard is here and sees me clutching on to a grab bar, guided by an instructor from the New England Handicapped Sports a.s.sociation? I don't want anyone to see me like this.

What am I doing? This might've been a really impulsive, really bad decision. As we approach the top-which isn't the top of anything but simply the arbitrary end of the Magic Carpet, visible from the booth I was safely sitting in back in the lodge before I had to go nosing around-the anxious chatter in my head grows louder and stronger, blooming into a full-fledged panic.

I've changed my mind. I don't want to do this. I don't want to s...o...b..ard. I want to go back to my booth and work on my word search puzzles. I want to be at the bottom of the hill. But we're at the top of the lift now, and there is no Magic Carpet ride to the bottom. And unlike the kids who freeze up and freak out for their own legitimate or irrational reasons, I can't decide to abandon my board and walk the moderate distance to the bottom. My granny cane is back inside the NEHSA building, and I can't imagine that Mike would agree to a.s.sist me down the hill on foot without at least my giving the snow-board an honest try.

Mike yanks me to the side so I don't cause a pileup at the end of the conveyor belt. He then turns and faces me and places his hands outside of mine on the rider bar.

"Ready?" he asks, his teeth all excited.

"No," I say, clenching mine, trying not to cry.

"Sure you are. Let's start by sliding forward a little."

He leans downhill, and we begin to move. Whether I like it or not (and it's decidedly not), I'm about to s...o...b..ard.

"Great, Sarah! How does it feel?"

How does it feel? It feels like excitement and terror are tumbling around inside my chest like clothes in a dryer. Each second I'm overwhelmed with one and then the other.

"I don't know."

"Let's try turning. Remember, peeing in the woods to go left, squatting over the toilet to go right. Forward and up on your toes, back and on your heels. Let's try forward first."

I rock my hips forward, and we begin to turn left. And that feels horribly wrong. I lock up my knees, stack my hips over my thighs, and stand upright. I lose all control over my balance, but then I feel Mike correcting for me, and he keeps me from falling down.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I don't like turning left. I can't see where I'm going before we're already there, and it scares me."

"Don't worry. I'll keep an eye out for where we're going. I promise we won't hit anyone or anything, okay?"

"I don't want to go left."

"Okay. Let's slide a little, and when you're ready, go back on your heels and turn right."

He nudges backward on the rider bar, and we begin sliding down the hill together. After a few seconds, I go back onto my heels, squatting over the imaginary toilet, and we turn to the right. I return my hips to neutral, and we slide forward. I decide to do it again. Squat, heels, neutral, forward. Squat, heels, neutral, forward.

"Great, Sarah! You're s...o...b..arding!"

I am? I release my concentration from the death grip it's got on the separate steps of what I'm doing and begin to realize the whole of what I'm doing. Slide, turn, slide. Slide, turn, slide.

"I'm s...o...b..arding!"

"How do you feel?" he asks.

How do I feel? Even though Mike is maintaining my balance and checking my speed, I decide when we turn and when we go downhill. I feel free and independent. And even though I'm holding on to a handicapped bar and normal s...o...b..ards don't have handicapped bars, I don't feel abnormal or handicapped. Walking with Neglect is so belabored and choppy, requiring miles of effort to drag myself a few miserable feet. As we glide down the hill on our s...o...b..ards, I feel fluid and graceful and natural. I feel the sun and breeze on my face. I feel joy.

We come to a stop at the bottom, still facing each other. I look at Mike's smiling face and see my reflection in his polarized sungla.s.ses. My teeth look as huge and excited as his do. How do I feel? I feel like Mike hurled a huge rock through the gla.s.s wall of my preconceptions, hitting it dead center, shattering my fear into a million glittery pieces on the snow around me. I feel unburdened and beyond grateful.

"I feel like I want to do that again."

"Awesome! Let's go!"

Now on flat terrain, Mike pops one of his boots out of the binding and tows me by the rider bar over to the Magic Carpet. Because he's with NEHSA, we're heading to the front, cutting the entire line.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

It's Lucy, standing next to Bob in line ahead of us. And Charlie is with them. Mike pulls me alongside them, and I introduce him to my family.

"Look at you!" says Bob, surprised to see me, but beaming, not a trace of disappointment or judgment in his words or in his eyes, where I can always see his truth.

"Look at me!" I say, bursting with childlike pride. "I'm a s...o...b..arder, just like Charlie!"

Charlie looks me up and down, inspecting the validity of this statement, lingering on Mike's gloved hand, which is resting on my rider bar, deciding if my declaration needs qualifying, if my enthusiasm needs a reality check.

"Cool!" he says.

"She just had her first run and did awesome. She's a natural," says Mike.

"We were about to do one more run before lunch," says Bob. "Can you join us?"

"Can we jump in here?" I ask.

"Sure," says Mike, and he pulls me into line behind Lucy.

We ride the Magic Carpet and gather together at the top.

"Ready?" Mike asks.

I nod. He leans back, and we begin to slide. Slide, turn, slide. I smile as we're s...o...b..arding, knowing that Bob and the kids are hanging back to watch me, knowing that Bob is probably smiling, too. I'm at the top of Rabbit Lane instead of the summit, and I'm on a handicapped s...o...b..ard instead of skis, but nothing about this experience feels less than 100 percent, less than perfect. I'm on the mountain with my family. I'm here.

Slide, turn, slide. Smile.

CHAPTER 30.

It's Monday morning. I know it's Monday morning because we drove back to Welmont from Cortland last night, and so last night was Sunday night. It's the beginning of March, and I've been out of work for four months now, which also means that I've been existing for four whole months outside of the rigorous daily schedule that used to map out my Who, What, When, Where, and Why for every single waking hour of the day. I know it's a weekend when we're in Vermont, and I know Mondays and Fridays because we've either just returned or we're packing to leave again, but the days in between have started to blur together. By Wednesday, I won't know if it's tuesday or Thursday. And it doesn't much matter.

I also know it's Monday because Linus didn't go to day care today. He still goes there Tuesdays through Fridays, but he doesn't go at all now on Mondays-one of the many efforts we're making to save money. Charlie and Lucy are at school, Bob is at work, and Linus and my mother went to the grocery store. I'm home alone, still in my pajamas, sitting in my favorite chair in the sunroom. My sacred s.p.a.ce.

I'm reading The Week magazine instead of the Sunday New York Times. I'm so done with the Sunday New York Times. I discovered The Week in the waiting room at the pediatric dentist's office, and I love it. It debriefs me on the week's main stories in three quick pages and includes opinions from the editorials and columnists of major newspapers like the New York Times. It even devotes a page to us closet People fans on the latest Hollywood "News." All the articles begin and end on the same page, and the whole magazine is a pleasurably manageable forty pages.

It possesses the same qualities I appreciate most in my favorite Berkley consultants-efficient yet thorough, cutting straight to the chase. As I flip the page and dwell on this comparison, I suddenly remember the 8020 rule.