Breathe

Breathe, breathe in the air.
Don't be afraid to care.
Leave but don't leave me.
Look around and choose your own ground.

- Gilmour, Rogers, Wright

It's been a long week here in Paradise. Lot's of new and not-so new reminders to do that most basic of things in my life; breathe.

For some reason, I'm not twenty-something anymore and a 40 hour week cranked out in 4 days wears a bit more on me than it did back in the day.

Waking to an alarm is absolutely the wrong way to start one's day. I mean, I just had gone to bed and the insistent buzzing of the evil clock starts up. Chloe, the cat, knows she has to be quiet until this cacophony starts up, then she can leap up on the bed, mostly landing on my bladder, then she starts in with her meowing and mewling begging to be fed. Clearly, in her mind, anyway, she hasn't been fed in days and days, if one were to believe her racket.

Anyway, I'm up, padding about in the cool apartment, mostly operating on autopilot. The cat is fed, the coffee started, the dawning day contemplated. All the better when done over hot coffee and quiet deck-sitting.

The week started last Sunday, the Fourth of July. Busy, hot and long. Running from pillar to post all day as one of the 3 deputies assigned to the shift called off duty mid-shift to watch the parade in Aspen, leaving 2 of us to cover the county. Pitkin County is roughly 1,000 square miles with most of it rugged back country. 2 main highways cut the county; Highway 82 and Highway 133. Lots of secondary roads and myriad of dirt roads, some resembling goat tracks and worse.

The usual assortment of complaints and calls were the norm. "My ex-girlfriend wants the money she loaned me back." "My neighbor's dog barks." "I lost my cell phone, can you find it?" "Can you do something about all these cars on the highway?" "The reason I'm speeding is that I'm low on gas." And so on.

A brief moment of deja vu' the other day, too. There I was, minding my own business heading up to a notorious stretch of road for speeders. A woman was standing at the bottom of a hill dressed in all black leathers, talking on her cell phone. She spots me and my patrol car and starts yelling that an ambulance is needed, and points up the steep, twisting roadway.

I quickly radio that I'm on scene with an accident with more info to follow. I drive a few hundred yards and I arrive. It's immediately obvious what has happened. A motorcyclist was going down the serpentine roadway and lost control, crashing to the blacktop. Unfortunately for him, a Jeep was headed uphill at the same time. The biker slid into the path of the Jeep and was completely run over. The biker was conscious, much to my surprise, but in a lot of pain. His ribs, shoulder and shoulder blade crunch under my cautious probing.

That's when I was transported back in time to August 29th, 2009. Same scenario, same situation. I had been up Independence Pass when another motorcyclist had wrecked nearby. I was once again probing and questioning a motorcycle rider that was badly injured and looking to me for some solace and relief from the pain. However, last August, in an attempt to remove the motorcycle, I tried to lift more than I could and tore my biceps muscle out of my elbow. That started my 9 month recovery over the course of 2 surgeries and months of rehab.

"There's no way in Hell I'm touching that motorcycle," I reminded myself.

Back to the present, I told the injured motorcyclist to try to breathe slowly and from the bottom of his belly as best he could. This gave him something other than the pain to focus on and he calmed a bit. The ambulance arrived, he was stabilized as best as possible, I drove the few, but endless miles to the emergency room.

And so, I remind myself to take my own advice. Breathe, just breathe in slowly and deeply. Keep it up, don't stop. Breathe in the air and take in the day. It's a day off, the whole day with only a few things that need to be done, and many, many things and choices of things to fill the day including doing absolutely nothing at all. Other than to breathe.