We finally went from winter to summer here in the Tetons; in a matter of days, our dirt melted out straight from snow to moondust. Or maybe it just felt like that because our highway yeeted itself off a mountain and we couldn’t get to trailheads for a few weeks in June?
Regardless, one thing is for sure: it’s topical lidocaine season, baby.
A couple weeks ago, I was out with some friends trying to beat the heat by sneaking in a ride during morning work hours. (Yes, I am now writing about the ride and, yes, my boss is the editor, so I have very effectively outed myself.) We rode Lithium, which is a chonky-ass line high above the valley that gives way from open fields of wildflowers to cruxy steeps to playground-esque jumps at the bottom.
It was my season opener on the trail (see above re: our highway yeeting itself) and I had my sights set on hitting some of the jumps at the bottom I hadn’t tackled in seasons prior, since deciding, in true Chaotic Aries fashion, that I enjoyed tempted both fate and gravity by leaving the ground on my bike.
My friend Collin showed me how to keep speed through a berm that had been giving me trouble leading into one of said jumps - a hip on the right hand side of the trail. After that, I was feeling good enough and hyped enough about being outside with friends who were encouraging and mentoring, so I went for it.
And came up short.
I landed on the uphill slope of the inside of the gap and bounced. I realized mid-unintentional-second-air that I was gonna come down on the bike, so I ditched it, and came to a sliding stop-to-stand in the the trail below.
“All I could see were your feet!” My other friend Tai laughed in relief as she pulled over behind me, watching me spit grit from my mouth. After assuring everyone (including myself) that I was (mostly) okay, and after inventorying my bike, which, for the third time in so many weeks had a bent derailleur hanger but somehow nothing worse, we rode the rest of the way out, my wounds singing their disapproval loudly as the wind hit my freshly open sores.
Once back to our cars, I loaded gingerly into Tai’s rig to be shuttled back to my truck at the upper trailhead. I could feel a Bonsai-sized version of our local ecosystem crunching in my pants as I sat and, as we sped over bumps in the road I’d never noticed till my shredded elbow hit the door going over one, all I could think about was that beautiful, nondescript plastic bottle with a cheery yellow label in my medicine cabinet: Aspercreme!
I have just enough first aid training (and personal experience falling) to know that dirt is good at fostering infections when it’s left in open wounds. But honestly, and even though I’ve done stupid shit like broken bones or walked six miles out from a backcountry ski yurt with a blown ACL and torn meniscus, there is nothing that makes me wince more than scrubbing out road rash. I’m guessing it probably feels worse than the gangrene I’d get if I didn’t scrub it. So I absolutely used to dread that moment when the washcloth would hit the cuts.
But now? Topical lidocaine has completely changed my life. Hyperbole? Maybe yes, maybe yes. Sure, at first application, it stings like finding out your situationship (as the youths would call it) had a girlfriend the whole time you were dating. But once you get over that initial shock - and a shot of whisky usually helps with that - you cannot feel a damn thing .
And, no, I’m not usually a proponent of burying emotions (see above re: situationship and a man who seriously needed to figure out how to be an emotionally intelligent human), but in this case, I will absolutely make an exception. It is a glorious thing to get in a shower and go ham on your flayed flesh, watching pebbles and duff wash down the drain, without a care in the world. It must be what people without anxiety feel like as they go about their days. To live unbothered? What a dream!
My dad asked after the afore-mentioned ACL incident if I was going to “stop doing all that crazy skiing stuff?” He’s since asked me similar questions about mountain biking, usually when I show up to his house for a visit sporting yet another scabby arm or bruised hip.
But I can’t. I won’t. This world is doing its best to overwhelm and crush my spirit (it’s full on wildfire season here in the Mountain West, for one, which makes it pretty hard to ignore the fact that our world is literally and figuratively burning as I gasp for breath pedaling uphill in air that makes it feel like I’m chain smoking cigs), and so there is absolutely no part of me that is willing to give up the sports that have the magical ability to bring me into that fleeting but powerful headspace of being happy .
Which is why I wanted to say thank you, topical lidocaine, for being there for me when being happy also makes me a little unwell.
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