on skiing

I don’t know who thought attaching flat sticks to your feet and sliding downhill in the snow was a good idea. It’s weird, and mostly just seems dangerous. I think the vast majority of the time, the most fun thing about it is the pure elation you feel when you realize that you are not dead when you get to the bottom. It is an exercise in being continuously surprised that you are not severely injured. I am not sure why we as a species enjoy it as a recreational activity. I’ve been skiing five times over a period of six years and I am still a little bit – or a lot – afraid of it. There are too many variables. Also, you could get hypothermia or frostbite on top of it all.

Ski boots and bindings are engineering marvels, the way the boots click in with just a solid heel stomp and somehow don’t pop out without considerable effort. Should we question that more? The whole sport is really just a game of physics, shifting weight and adjusting angles to affect speed and direction. One missed calculation or over correction could result in a ride in one of those medic sleds or a body bag. It’s very easy to break a bone or get a concussion or a million other things. In fact, there’s plenty of examples of those things happening. Lifts dangle you over terrain with little to no guard, like a negligent and freezing Soarin’, the Disney ride, not to mention the ones that pull you up a mountain at a seventy-degree angle by the literal seat of your pants. None of this should work. Someone decided it was a good idea to give trails names like “High Anxiety,” “Goodbye Girl,” and “Purgatory,” all of which sound horrifying. There’s no logical reason we should want to spend a lot of money on hotels and gear and lift passes and do this as a vacation. But we do. My family really does.

Which is how I find myself precariously sideways on a fairly crowded slope one day this month.

“Can I make fun of you for a second?” Frank asks, I chuckle sheepishly and give him permission. He skis six feet down the slope awkwardly, hunched and halting. “This is the old Sarah skiing. This” -–he straightens his back and pulls his skis closer together and turns back toward me smoothly—“is what you look like now. See the difference?”

I am in a skiing lesson. Frank, old enough to be my father, is my instructor, assisted by Jack the intern, who graduated college this past spring and has nice eyes.

I do see the difference. I feel it, too. I am more in control and the pain in my legs is nearly entirely gone. Jack compliments me on my form and the three of us ski the rest of the way down to the lift, the two instructors trailing behind me to keep other people from getting too close to me while I focus on using all of the tips they’ve taught me. Small wedge. Knees together. Look downhill. Square shoulders. Poles low. Center of gravity high. Keep my bones stacked. I hear them whispering about me, observing, strategizing, as we pull into line, and then they offer ideas on how I can improve. We go up again, chatting about the places I’ve lived, Jack’s summer job, and Frank’s granddaughter.

Midway down the slope, Frank says: “You’re a pretty good student, aren’t you? Straight As? Yeah? Know how I know? You’re doing everything we’ve told you and we only said it once.”

We go down again, and back up, and do it some more. Frank correctly guesses that my goal is to be able to keep up with my family on the steep blue trails a little higher up the mountain. We drill hard to that end, simulating the way I need to move even though the slope we’re on is a fraction of that. A storm blows in, rocking the chair lift. As the wind picks up and snow starts to fall, Frank tells me, “This can be our last run of the day. Don’t worry about focusing on anything too hard. Just get down the mountain safely.”

I do, and Frank fist bumps me through thick gloves and offers to carry my skis to the bus stop. I tell him that I can handle it and thank him, he says happy holidays, and that’s it.

The weather the next day is miserable. The temperature is in the single digits, the wind howls and gusts, snow stings as it blows into my face. The top of the mountain is entirely shrouded by a gray cloud, chairs disappear into it as we ride up the lift. This particular day in 2020, I am especially grateful for the mask not only for viral protection, but for keeping my nose and cheeks warm, though it is soon wet with a mixture of snow and spit and snot that in this moment, I am afraid will freeze and/or suffocate me. I am with my family, and I am scared. The whole way down from here is blue. Historically, blues are hard for me. But I have learned a lot and I am ready to prove it. I was not prepared for the weather, for low visibility and falling snow making the trail slippery and chunky, the edges of my already precarious skis catching. I panic briefly, looking over the top. It is steep. I wonder if my boots are tight enough. I envision myself barreling down, injuring myself or someone else, or falling off the edge. I take a deep breath, mutter a half-sarcastic prayer, and turn my body downhill. I start to ski, thinking step-by-step through all the things Frank and Jack taught me. Knees. Wedge. Head. Shoulders.

I fall once that day, mere yards from the base, because I get too fast and catch an edge. I slide a few feet downhill, just out of reach from my poles, and a kind stranger stops and stretches as far as she can to hand them back to me, briefly making me think of an icy version of The Creation of Adam. But other than that, I ski impressively well, and at one point my brother remarks that I look more comfortable than even him, and why did I stop, he was following me down this trail?

Later in the week, my dad and I find ourselves on an ungroomed trail, and I manage to slog myself through knee deep snow and launch myself into snowboard tracks just trying to stay upright. I took a video after standing back up once, panning over the beautiful snow and the tree line from a Christmas card, soundtracked by my desperate breaths after a struggle to get my feet under me. It feels like an apt summation of my experience skiing: it is beautiful, and I am trying very hard, out of breath, and incredibly proud of myself.

For all my posturing at the terribleness of skiing, the allure of it is not lost on me. I feel cool, bundled up in my gear, the bulk of the boots lending me a swagger I don’t have otherwise. The helmet and reflective goggles remind me of something from Star Wars, and the thick gear lets me picture myself like those slow motion shots of astronauts headed toward the Shuttle. Snow is beautiful, especially when it covers evergreen trees. The sky seems most blue when it is cold out. There are few things I’ve seen that awe me more than a view of the mountains from a ski lift or the top of a trail. Quaint mountain towns are lovely. Skiing is both a group activity and a solo sport at the same time. It is physically demanding but also relaxing. It’s a contained getaway: far from “the real world,” but plenty to explore and entertain for weeks. It is quiet and offers space to think, even if the only thoughts I’m capable of are turnturnturnturnturnturn okay you did it keep going breathe turn your knee okay turn turn turn turn okay breathe oh no oh no oh no oh no turn turn turn turnturn yay good job you are still alive okay you did that one do it again okay good you got this.

I like skiing, for all those reasons. I find it idyllic, romantic even. I like the feeling of challenge, the adrenaline rush, and the relief of making it down. I like daring myself to be better, and though I sometimes find myself splayed on my back in the snow and missing a ski, often it’s rewarding. It is hard to describe the joy that comes with beating the odds. I don’t talk about it much on the internet or at all, but I know my body was not built for skiing. There are muscles I can’t control that are important. There is strength I don’t have that could really come in handy. My balance isn’t really all that great. Skiing asks me to face many of my deepest and most complicated insecurities head on. I am high strung enough as it is, but putting me in a situation where I feel especially out of control and especially aware of my shortcomings, and it is so easy to panic and spiral into a terrified and defensive worst-version of myself. And yet. I consistently make it down the mountain and I am perfectly okay, if a little bit tired and sore. But I can do it, and be actually pretty decent at it, and even have fun. The payoff of a solid run is always worth the brief moment at the top when my life flashes before my eyes. I am better for it, mentally and physically and emotionally and spiritually.

I suppose this is a story about bravery and perseverance and doing hard things and facing your demons. If it is, it’s a lesson I haven’t quite learned. Every time I come back to it, I feel it afresh. It’s hard. I get better at skiing, but the insecurities morph, too. So it continues. But I love it. I’d go skiing again tomorrow if I could. I would probably cry, but I’d laugh, too. And I’d feel accomplished after it all.

There is a metaphor here, some kind of allegory for growing up and making choices and learning and refining and trying again told through my misadventures in the snow. Bravery and courage are different. Do hard things. Trust people who care about you. You can recover from your mistakes and a fall won’t kill you. Or, even if you fall once or twice, you still finish the run and the success is no less real. Strangers don’t think about you as much as you think they do. Everybody starts somewhere. Adaptation is not the same as failure. Sometimes, going afraid and winging it the rest of the way is the best option. No one really knows what they’re doing. Just do the next right thing. You – I – will be okay. The list goes on.

Those things are all true, and there are levels of nuance to all of them. They are all, I think, fundamental to the human experience. I think, in skiing, I learn about life and my place in it. Perspective on who I am and who I’m becoming through a narrative of adventure, because I like good stories. Stories that are epic and funny and inspiring and sometimes a little bit sad. Like life, because well, this is life.

So perhaps, in lieu of any real moralizing, consider this my elegy for 2020. Much like skiing, it has been both terrible and wonderful, difficult and surprising, frustrating and rewarding, sweet and sour, way too long and yet it went by so fast. Maybe we learned a little about being human. Maybe we can be proud of the little things in the face of something generally less than ideal. Maybe we’ve come to the end, tired and worn and cold and a little bit discouraged and say “huh. we made it,” and then haul ourselves back into line, inch by inch, to do it again, a little bit better this time. Hopeful and scared. Nervous and excited. All at the same time.

Here’s to another good run.