I'm missing some minutes. It's a strange concept to have lived and acted and spoken and gestured, yet not remember a whit of it.

I have no memory of the two or five minutes right around midday on Saturday. Apparently a an out-of-control snowboarder slammed into me in a blind spot on a trail right under a liftline at Mt. Snow. I say "apparently" because I don't remember this, nor the few minutes after when everybody came running up the hill at me, and I asked my new friend for his name and my old friends what had happened. I was strapped to a backboard and ski patrolled down to the base, where they did a pretty cursory check, we all ate some lunch, and I went back out for two more (slightly timid) runs before calling it quits. The best part about not remembering the impact is not having its fear. (But I think I'll be wearing a helmet from now on.)

All told, I got off easy. Both the base clinic and the emergency room at New York Methodist (where I spent all of Sunday afternoon) determined that there was nothing permanently wrong with me; I have what's known as a "moderate" concussion. There's a spot in my head that hurts if there's quick motion, and a bit of whiplash. My eyelids are bruised at the corners and they're starting to swell up in the evening. But that's about it.

I want my minutes back, though. As the bruises have pooled up a bit today, so has the anxiety, the introspection, the squeamishness. There's a part of me that wants to see angles and trajectories and impacts. And mostly the expression on "Caleb"'s face in the moment he decided not to stick around. I need neiter apologies nor vengeance; I just want to know.