Infantile Amnesia

This summer, my parents pulled out an ancient family VHS tape and we all gathered around to watch a video of me at 18 months old, in a full body cast that extends from my chest to my right foot. My femur is broken, a spiral fracture, into seventeen fragments — the result of a freak sandbox accident. 

These fragments will, I want to go back in time and tell my parents, fuse into a perfectly strong bone that can take me anywhere: I’ll run trails and climb the Tetons. But for now I am scooting...