Does a Bear Should in the Woods?
Photograph taken by Carol Persons, HMUA by Leah Bassett, Model is Ivey Smith; 2015 A good friend asked me a very important question shortly after I finished my thru-hike of the Long Trail in June of 2020.
In all seriousness, “Does a bear should in the woods?”
As I recall, we both laughed quite a bit. I was camping in her and her husband’s yard, decompressing from my 272mile walk in the most COVID friendly way we could think of. I was telling her about how I felt my life “should” be, and because it wasn’t, I felt profoundly anxious nearly all the time.
My anxiety is what pushed me into the woods last summer and many summers before that; when life would become complex, I didn’t know what else to do besides go to the mountains and sweat it out—find a forest, find a trail, and walk with purpose in a single direction until I reached “the end”.
Sitting around a bonfire in the mountains of Vermont, riding the high of yet another long hike, I wasn’t yet prepared to let go of “should”; should kept me safe, it kept me moving and running, hyperaware of each and every sabotaging detail of my life. I needed to hold onto my should’s, “should” is what led me to the Long Trail, it is what would, in the future, push me to undertake longer, faster, and riskier adventures. I couldn’t stop running—I shouldn’t—or else from where would my life take its purpose and meaning?
Bear with me.
“Young Warrior” Ivey Smith squiring for the joust troop at the Maryland Renaissance Festival; 2007I decided to seek outside help about a month ago after I crashed while backcountry skiing near my home in Crested Butte, CO. My right leg bent the wrong way as I went to make a turn, I heard a sickening crunch and pop—like someone cracking their knuckles—and then I screamed, less because of the pain and more so because of the noise. My boyfriend helped me hobble off the slope, side stepping the whole way down when the technical butt-slide was no longer a viable option.
While we slowly skinned the two miles back to the car, reality began to crash over me carried on waves of nausea and self-reproach; something was wrong, and not a little something, everything was about to change. What about the AIARE Level 1 course I was supposed to take in two weeks? How would I get to work? Could I work? How badly was I injured? How long would it take to recover? Would I be able to achieve the goals I’d set for myself this summer? I don’t want to change my plans!
My already high, baseline anxiety was spiking, and then my brain transitioned into survival mode.
You idiot, this is your fault! You asked to go skiing today, you should have spoken up on that ridge and said you were scared! You shouldn’t have given in to that panic attack—they do you no good! You allowed yourself to be overtaken by a totally irrational fear and now you are FUCKED, who knows how badly!? You should have done what you knew how to do and just traverse the slope, why did you turn? Stupid! All it took was one minute, one mistake, and now… shit. This is completely your fault.
Photograph taken by Carol Persons, HMUA by Leah Bassett, Model is Ivey Smith; 2015 The onslaught continued for two hours in the back of my mind, like a TV turned up too loud to allow for meaningful conversation. I could only half-listen to Logan as he told me funny stories, trying to take my mind off of my knee. I was sick with regret, drowning in a sea of “should” induced shame.
Over the weeks that followed, I found myself alternately furious and desperately sad. Every part of me seemed to be folding in on itself. I had no solid answers and I wouldn’t get them anytime soon since my insurance had lapsed for the month of January, something I was unaware of until I was handed an Urgent Care bill exceeding the upper limits of my comprehension the day after my accident. I had to wait. I had to be patient. Both of which were words I scorned.
I would not accept my brokenness, I would not yield to physical weakness, I would not stop or slow down, how dare the Universe do this to me.
As I write this, it is February 10th, and since my crash on January 12th, several things have occurred, firstly, I have wanted to die, several times; I told God/the Universe/Who or Whatever party is responsible for mapping out my life, that They had given me too much this time. Then I proceeded to list all of the difficult things I had been through thus far to this Unknowable Entity—in case it had forgotten—a train of thought which usually left me so nauseous I would skip meals and contemplate forcing myself to vomit as some sick form of self-reprimand. Secondly, I became painfully insecure, I could not fathom who or what I would become without my physical strength and ability, my body was my freedom, and my value system was built on its capacity to “do”. I was a doer from a long line of doers, if I could no longer “do” then I was worthless and undeserving of love (seems like a big leap, but it’s not really). Thirdly, I finally did something besides wallow, I showed up to an AA meeting after a month of avoiding the rooms and I sobbed in front of 5 people I did not know for far too many consecutive minutes.
I didn’t want to drink, I knew picking up would only make things worse, I wanted something far more final, I just wanted it all to be over. I didn’t see another option. I believed my relationship—one aspect of my life I had become immensely grateful for over the preceding months—would end, that I would be abandoned because I was no longer relevant or capable, I believed my friends would no longer be interested in seeing me, that my life would no longer have purpose or meaning, that I would become obsolete, forgotten, unimportant.
At the end of that first meeting, after smearing snot all over the inside of my mask, my eyes raw from crying for three weeks straight, my mouth did something I didn’t give it permission to do, it asked a woman to sponsor me, here, in Crested Butte.
I actually asked for help, yet another thing I am loath to do.
Believe it or not, at this point, I didn’t even know what was wrong with my knee. I had driven to and from Denver for an MRI days prior; my doctor had told me it would be cheaper than getting one locally even though my insurance would not cover it, he also told me he “didn’t think I would need surgery”, so why put any money towards my deductible?
I still had hope, you see, that night at the meeting, I was depressed, but I had hope.
When I arrived to have my MRI read the morning after my public display of self-pity, I got news that incited such anger within me, such shock and outrage, I could not at first understand where all my rage was coming from.
Photograph taken by Carol Persons, HMUA by Leah Bassett, Model is Ivey Smith; 2015 “Completely ruptured,” the notes on the screen read.
I had been lied to. This doctor did not remember or seem to care that only a week before he’d pumped up a balloon of hope within me, a hope that was now being rapidly deflated. I could not have helped but think my prognosis would be better—at least nonsurgical—based on the prior information given.
I was reduced to just another ACL tear, just another ligament that needed replacing. He glanced at the clock when my eyes started to tear up, seeming uncomfortable. He patted my leg, said someone from his office would be in touch later this week, and then left me, alone, in that tiny room surrounded by glass windows; the notes from the radiologist still glaring on the screen.
It was all so clinical, so definite. There was no room for argument. It didn’t matter that I could walk, or perform most of my preferred activities with out pain or instability; I felt mostly normal, but that was because of my anatomy and physical strength, both of which had hidden the much deeper, much more serious problem. I was broken in a way that would not heal on its own, not without a deep surgical dive, time, and an intentional recovery; the metaphorical nature of my situation was not lost on me. I could keep muscling through my problem (literally), but I would be weaker for it, hobbled, and likely never reach my full potential.
The simplicity of my diagnosis didn’t account for how completely ruined my life felt. It should have said, “torn ACL provoking existential crisis; patient will not pull through due to an insufficient library of coping skills”.
Fuck. You. To whom? Everyone.
I ran out of the office and onto the sidewalk; the popsicle stick retaining walls I’d built around my heart burst and that awful blackhole I hadn’t come face to face with in years, re-opened. I fell into the driver’s seat of my truck and keeled over the emergency break, screaming. I don’t know if anyone was around to hear me; I was spiraling. The feeling was worse than dying, I believed, and I didn’t want to feel it. My anger was the only thing that kept me from gouging out my own larynx and bleeding myself dry over the steering wheel which still had that new car smell. I hated that doctor for his lack of empathy, I hated my body for failing me, I hated that I had to live every moment of my life from here forward and that I couldn’t just check out until all of this was over.
It wasn’t fair.
I had been living my life propped up on a pair of legs I believed to be infallible, a pair of legs that led me to the door of sobriety and through it, carried me away from unhealthy and volatile relationships, saved me from myself over and over again. What would I do? What could I do?
Kim (right) and I on an early morning skin up Mt. Crested Butte; 2020
Logan and I backcountry skiing with friends near Crested Butte; 2020 I sat on a couch in a cozy office; pictures of pastoral farmland hung on the wall opposite me. Behind me, a framed painting of a tiny egg. A patient looking woman appearing close to my age sat across from me, she wore a moss green sweater, jeans, and a pair of Doc Martins.
I realized that didn’t want to scream at her, a pleasant surprise, instead, I found myself wanting to sleep for a very long time. I told her about my life, which I believed to be an entirely fucked and hopeless mess. She listened carefully, and told me it sounded to her like I had been living in survival mode—a perpetual state of anxiety—for most of my life, and that she and I could work together to figure out how to turn that mode of existence, off. She also told me that my belief system did not seem to leave a lot of space for me to be a human being, she emphasized the importance of being compassionate towards myself, an idea so foreign to me, I balked.
In that safe, carefully cultivated office space, it dawned on me that I had a choice. I could hold onto my heavy shame, my merciless inner critic, my brutal values that did not leave space for me to be human or for life to just happen; I could continue to run myself into the ground, fleeing from the invisible adversary, or I could choose another path. But that meant giving up my perception of control, it meant admitting that I didn’t get a say over what would happen to me—what had happened to me—that it wasn’t my fault I crashed, or anything else, the list was long.
I had a lot of opinions about how I should be, how my life should be. These beliefs served mostly to make me miserable; they established unrealistic ideals that I would never be able to meet, but those ideals kept me running, pushing, doing. For a time, my beliefs and ideals—my “shoulds”—seemed to keep me safe, they gave my life hard edges and shape, they provided me with benchmarks to track my progress.
Ivey Smith completing her thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail; August 6, 2017And sitting there in that peaceful office, I still wanted to fight the Universe, hand to hand, woman to Enigmatic-Omnipotent-Energetic-Force, futile as it might be. I was still beside myself with anger and sorrow, I still wanted puke on the door mat of the doctor’s office and smear it all over his pristine glass windows (I had had strong visuals of doing just that when I was given the news about my knee). I still did not fully accepted my reality… but something in me wanted to.
Something inside of me had known to push back against the doubt and the shame those last few weeks, it knew to ask for help, it got me to a meeting, it found me a therapist, it didn’t listen to the shameful “should”, instead, it forged a new way through all the shit and the indignity. It’s been inside of me the whole time, only, I’ve done a really good job of keeping it buried up until now, because life can’t be easy, right? It can’t be safe, it can’t be kind. Or can it?
Does a bear should in the woods?
My friend and I doubt it.
We bet that when a bear is tired, it probably just sleeps.
Photograph taken by Donnie Carlo of Ivey Smith; 2016My ACL surgery will be completed by Dr. Gloria Beim on March 23rd. She will use a piece of my quad tendon for the reconstruction. The recovery period is 8 months long, and I will start PT the day after my surgery. This summer I will be able to bike, run on smooth ground, swim, and do activities that do not involve any pivoting whatsoever. I will not be able to downhill ski anymore this season, or trail run this summer. The goals for the duration of the 8 month recovery period are to heal, gain strength, and not tear my new ligament.
Someone told me shortly after my accident, that I am still an athlete in my sport, even when I am not able to actively “do” my sport. Who I am does not change based on what I am able to do at any given time. I am still a thru-hiker, a runner, a skier, an adventurer. I will try to adopt this mentality as I embark on this new phase of my life.
Thank you for reading!
-Ivey “Kaleidoscope” Smith
