My Concussion Story, Part 1: The Accident

At the airport in Moscow, I sent my finished proposal to my adviser. After my computer ran out of battery, I sat reading Pema Chodrun’s Places That Scare You for the second time, reflecting on one of her passages:

“All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive. We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest… we can ask ourselves this question: ‘Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?’”

--> I reflected on my workaholism then, my tendency to expect satisfaction and validation from working hard, and yet somehow always feeling empty. 

After my red-eye flight, I went home and, in typical Robo-Sarah fashion, I filled the day with emails and writing. Before I knew it, it was time to go to jiujitsu. Exhausted from my trip and sleep-deprived from the overnight flight, I considered not going to training, but felt guilty having just missed the past 10 days for my trip. I decided to go and prepared for the 30 minute bike trip.

It was cold and I considered wearing a hat to keep my ears from getting cold. Rather than wear a hat, I decided to wrap a headscarf around my ears and put my helmet on top of that. I put my pollution mask on, and raced out the door, running 20 minutes late. The air in my tires was low, so I raced around the dark back alleys of my neighborhood. The sun had already completely set and it was pitch black except for the lights of oncoming cars. I went looking for a bike shop to fill up my tires because my usual one was closed. Panicked about being late to class, I was pedaling down an alley when a van abruptly pulled out from behind a parked car and crossed my lane as he made a left turn. I saw him coming, and felt his headlights on me. I swerved.

This happens to me all the time in Urumqi. The driver usually sees me and brakes, and I swerve out of the way just in time.

This time he didn’t see me and the van collided with my body. As I soared through the air, propelled forward by the inertia of my forward pedaling interrupted by the collision with the van, I didn’t scream. I had only this thought: 

I want to live; I have so much more that I still want to say.