Skiing!!! Part 3

I celebrated the one year anniversary of my knee surgery by skiing yesterday.

Meh.

I am now at the point where I have returned to being a mediocre beginner. In fairness, I am better than a beginner, but I feel like one as I am barely getting off the green runs.

Yesterday, we drove to Snoqualmie. Overnight, it snowed six inches, and it was still snowing when we drove to the mountain. The Washington Department of Transportation issued a "chains required except on all-wheel drive" announcement for traveling over the pass. Traffic was slow and treacherous. Claire Adele had just gotten back from an out of town trip, and she skipped skiing to sleep in. I feared we were going to die in a collision and Claire Adele would be an orphan. I thought about texting my friend Carla with Claire Adele's contact information in case we were killed. We survived, but I was rattled when we arrived.

I started on Little Thunder. The six to eight inches of new snow had not been groomed. Instead of corduroy, this run was reasonably packed down powder. The other runs were chopped up powder. I remember my surgeon telling me to do cruisers, whatever is easiest for me. I had Jack telling me these conditions were fine, and I've skied in worse conditions. "It is better than skiing on ice," he said. True, but this was hard. I vacillated between thinking "I am perfectly capable of doing this" and "I shouldn't be doing this." It sucked.

When I got in my quagmire, I thought about how much weight I lifted on the leg press (140 pounds on top of my own weight) at the YMCA Friday. "My legs are strong" became my new mantra as I went down the mountain.

I was feeling good, and Jack suggested we try a blue run. I was feeling confident on Little Thunder and thought why not. On Pacific Crest, I slogged through the moguls that came from the ungroomed powder. "Avoid bumps," I heard my surgeon say. It wasn't like I was seeking out the moguls--they were just there. I was fine, but it took a ton of concentration.

After lunch, I did a few runs on Little Thunder. The snow was perfect, but it was getting boring. I wanted to try something harder, so we went to a different green run. Jack and I crossed half of the mountain through ungroomed powder. I can imagine the unpleasant expression on Evan's face if he were to see me plowing through the field in snow over my boots.

We made it to the other green run. The snow was choppy, and there were more advanced beginners here. I was at the top of the run when a twelve-year-old boy barreling straight down the hill in a wide parallel stance clipped the back of my skis, and I fell. Thankfully, it was not a grand crash--just a little tip over after losing my balance. While I was extremely grateful I wasn't injured, I couldn't figure out how to stand back up while wearing the brace. Jack was already at the bottom of the hill, otherwise, I wold have asked for a hand up. I took my skis off, and in the powder, I couldn't get them back on. Finally, I asked two adults to help me. After ten minutes, I made it to the bottom. I was a little rattled, but I was okay.

The hard part now is pacing myself. Normally, I don't mind challenging myself. I had to challenge myself with physical therapy. Now, I am supposed to take it easy. How easy is too easy versus easy enough?

Skiing!!! Part II

This isn't a joke like my blog post from in December when I said I went skiing when I really didn't. This time it is real, as noted by the picture of my snow covered skis. As my kids might say, this time, the shit is real.

I have a friend who says when we are stuck in middle age, we need to think about doing things that make us proud of ourselves. In some ways, it makes obvious sense: don't do things you will be ashamed of. In other ways, it seems like an odd thing to think about middle age. Do we really need to worry about self-esteem? Isn't self-esteem for kids? As I got off the ski lift yesterday for the first time in more than a year, I found a new mantra: I am proud of myself.

It was President's Day. I didn't want to ski Sunday because I feared there might be regularly scheduled lessons and I didn't want to share the bunny hill with 150 kids learning to ski or snowboard for the first time. No thanks. Monday was quiet. While I was getting my brace on, Jack bought me a lift ticket. I told him to get me a beginner ticket--only good for green runs--, but he got me a full lift ticket which was about $20 more expensive. He was more optimistic than I was. I felt like a nervous bride with a supportive father: I knew I could back out at any time. Even though I had my skis, my brace and everything else, I could still bail if I felt like it.

I thought I'd start slow on the Magic Carpet. When I saw the long line, I almost skipped it and went straight to the chairlift. Jack said, "You had better try this first."

I had never been on a Magic Carpet before. When I learned to ski back in 7th grade, we side-stepped up the hill to start. After that, we would take tow ropes up the beginner hill. The guy at the top of the Magic Carpet looked at me funny. I was the only person on the Magic Carpet not wearing rental skis who wasn't accompanying a small child. 

The Magic Carpet isn't that easy. It is easier than a tow rope, which is harder than a chairlift. Tow ropes require timing, balance and the ability to keep your skis in the tracks. If you can make it up a hill on a tow rope, you probably are coordinated enough to make it down. The Magic Carpet requires balance. On a chairlift, you at least get to sit. 

When I got to the top of the Magic Carpet, I was worried I'd have to dodge fallen snowboarders or obstinate preschoolers who were tired, hungry, and cold, or lost from their group. I turned left to avoid a dozen seated beginning snowboarders sitting on the right side of the carpet. I took off my goggles and wiped off the condensation three times before making the thirty-yard trek to the bottom. My pizza wedge was awesome. I completely avoided facing my body down the fall line, only pointing myself in the direction I was heading. 

"You've done Dave Murray Downhill!" Jack cheered me on, reminding me of the long, black run I've done at Whistler. "Ready for Little Thunder?" Nope. One more time on the Magic Carpet. As I was going downhill, I wondered if there was a way I could practice skiing without actually skiing. Does such a thing exist?

As Jack and I were waiting in line, we saw a little girl with a snowboard crying, "Daddy, no no! Don't make me go!" She pleading, not whining. I guessed that dad was a big snowboarder, and wanted his daughter to learn so they could spend every weekend on the slopes.

"That's the way to instill a lifelong love of the sport," Jack said sarcastically. Jack knows better than to drag an unwilling kid up a mountain.

"That kid needs some hot chocolate," I said. 

I got on the ski lift just fine. Even more remarkable was when I got off of it. My muscle memory which failed me terribly on the Magic Carpet fabulous when I got off the lift. I was careful, but my skis led me to the right place, and I was able to turn and go exactly where I wanted to go. I was able to dodge a fallen snowboarder and a few very slow skiers who didn't clear the offload area fast enough. I was surprised that auto-pilot kicked in so easily. It was as if my subconscious told my conscious to shut up and let it handle getting off the lift. Later Jack told me he was worried that I might freak out at the top of the chair lift, not get off, and ride back down. He wanted me to try to Magic Carpet first to get my ski legs back.

At the top of Little Thunder, I cleared the condensation from my goggles three times, stalling. Once I started down the hill, I started to cry. Why was I up here? What was the point? What was I trying to prove? Did I really need to do this, even though I had been going to physical therapy for a year for this moment? It was too late to change my mind. I already at the altar and had said "I do" to the mountain. I was committed to getting down not via Ski Patrol on a sled. As I went down, I started my mantra for the day "I am proud of myself." I smiled, and I really was proud of myself.

The first turn was torture. I would have to bear most of my weight on one leg. My mind regressed to when I was a 7th grader at Perry Middle School on the Wednesday night ski bus to Snow Trails, and we learned to turn by lifting one leg off the ground. My brain wasn't so sure my body could handle it, but my legs were fine even with the not insignificant additional weight of the ski boots and skis.

I made a few turns, and relaxed. I looked crappy compared to old form when I could fly down the runs off the 7th Heaven Express, but I shouldn't compare my current self to my old one, for better or worse. My old self a year ago was getting ready for surgery. My old self last spring couldn't ride a bike on the road. My old self last fall couldn't run.

I made it down. And I wanted to do it again. After the fourth time, I remembered to face down the fall line. I practiced planting my poles to turn, even though the terrain wasn't steep enough to warrant that much effort. It snowed a few inches while we there, so the snow on the slope was perfectly soft and fresh. The icy patches that were there in the morning were gone before lunch.

Jack took this picture of me at the bottom--and very flat part--of the run.

By the end of the day, I was having fun. I remembered why I liked to ski and was grateful for all of the work I did for the past year to bring me back. Jack wanted me to try a blue run, but I wasn't mentally ready. I remembered my orthopedic surgeon telling me to stick to the cruisers, whatever a cruiser means to me. No moguls, no ungroomed runs. Even though I was wearing my brace, I didn't want to tempt the ACL protection gods. 

There is some bittersweetness in my return to the mountain. In the past two seasons, my kids have gotten significantly better than me. The Boy loves his terrain "steep and deep." When the powder is packed down, he is in the terrain park, practicing jumping, 360 turns and skiing backward. Claire Adele loves Alpental, a place for advanced skiers. Jack has learned how to ski there, too. While I was re-learning to walk, they were on the double blacks. I will probably never ski the same runs with them again except when they are humoring mom. 

I went back to my mantra. "I am proud of myself." Someday, I can be the grandma who takes the little ones on the Magic Carpet, hangs with them on the green runs, and buys them hot chocolate when they get too cold, while their parents shred the gnar on the double blacks.

Ski Brace

Thursday afternoon, I got a ski brace. You'd think this would have made my blog nano-seconds after I got it, with me typing on my phone in the Sports Medicine parking garage. I would post a picture of me wearing the brace, but my leg looks like an ice cream cone with a scoop of cottage cheese on top.

"Most legs have soft tissue at the top," said Brian, the brace guy, as I complained about my flabby upper thigh.

Yes, the brace was--and is--awesome. When I put it on, I felt like the bionic woman. I was a little worried I wouldn't like it because it is a brace and I wore a brace for many weeks after I initially tore my ACL and weeks after my surgery. That brace was a big clunky monster. This one is light and sleek and designed for sports.

"People complain all of the time that the post-surgical brace slides down their leg too much," said Brian. "Those braces are designed to keep your leg immobilized. This brace is designed to help you move."

I walked around with the brace in the office. For the first time in more than a year, my left did not feel inferior to my right. It was amazing. I had a friend who tore her ACL around the same time I did. She said she went cross country skiing and went downhill.

"My leg started to give out," she said. "It just gave up."

I told that story to Brian, the brace guy. "The brace will give you stability, and stability will give you strength."

That makes sense.

"The brace is really kind of a placebo," he continued. "It isn't going to make you stronger, but it will make you feel more secure."

Brain's comments made me think about what Evan said the last time I saw him. The body and the brain love symmetry. When the brain doesn't sense symmetry, it gives the body a "ping" saying something isn't right. When I wear the brace, my brain doesn't give me the "ping," the alert that says "Danger! Avoid using this leg!" This brace brings me a sense of symmetry. Even if it isn't 100% real, it is close enough, and it should work.

Before I hit the slopes, I am supposed to wear the brace walking around to break it in. I wore it out of the office Thursday and wore it Saturday and today. It does take a while to get it on and perfectly adjusted. Unlike my surgical brace, this one needs all new adjustments each time I put it on. It takes practice to get it on correctly each time.

While I was thrilled when I first wore the brace, I am growing nervous about skiing. It is one thing to wear the brace while walking the dog, it will be another to wear it while I am getting on and off the chair lift. I am considering just riding the magic carpet the first time I go out, maybe not even making it to the chair lift.

We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Trash Talking Mom

Since Claire Adele is out of town on a school trip, it is much easier for me to prepare meals for the family. Claire Adele is a vegetarian, whereas Jack, the Boy and I like to eat meat. In honor of Valentine's Day, I made bar-b-que ribs. It might have been a mistake to make ribs on the day of my "Writing into Wisdom: Exploring Feminine Archetypes" class where we discuss Greek goddesses and taking down the patriarchy, but I digress. I made cornbread as a side dish. Jack usually makes the cornbread while I make the ribs. The Boy was at a friend's house after school, and I didn't know when he was coming home. Jack was working at the trauma center, and I didn't know when he would be home, either. I tried to get everything prepped so that if they came home earlier, dinner would be in progress, but I could stall it if they were coming home later. Aren't I nice?

All of which is my excuse to why I forgot to add baking powder to the cornbread. It came out looking like this.

Normally, it would have been twice as puffy. Jack saw it, decided it wasn't worth eating, and re-made it.

"Did you add baking powder?" he asked.

"I must have forgotten," I said. I bake all of the time, and I never leave out baking powder.

"No," he said, "I'll do it" when I said I would restart it. I was annoyed. Very annoyed.

The Boy came rushing in from doing his homework.

"You forgot to add baking powder?" he said. He brought his phone into the kitchen, looked at the cornbread, and started texting. Never had he been interested in my cooking failures before. He then went back to doing his homework.

This morning, the Boy told me he and his friend made mug cakes yesterday at his house, and they couldn't remember if they needed baking powder or baking soda.

"I thought you used baking powder, so that was what we used," he said.

"Did you texted you friend that I forgot to add baking powder to the cornbread?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "I sent him a picture, too."

Great. Not only is my husband critical of my baking skills, but my son is also trash talking me to his friends. The Boy, who used to be a Momma's Boy, now thinks I am a daft old cow who can't bake. My inner Athena is telling to let the boys make their own dinner from now on.

Women of Color; Or, How my Dad Became a Liberal

[Dear Readers: I am back after having a cold for the past few days. -- Lauren]

My father was a life-long Republican. He doesn't like talking about his political views in public, so I am probably violating some level of his privacy here. The fact that he doesn't discuss his political views might have made it easier for him to shift. He would have no crow to eat after changing his mind because so few people were aware of his opinions.

Nevertheless, I have been perplexed by the change in views on social justice over the past year. It started with the Republican primaries. My dad hated Trump. Hated him.

"He's an asshole," my dad said of Trump early on. Maybe it was after Trump mocked a disabled reporter. Maybe it was after he heard the tape of Trump saying he would date Ivanka if she weren't his daughter. Maybe it was after Trump had said he would build a wall to keep out "bad hombres" or after he started trash-talking Muslims. I don't remember, but I know it was before the "pussy grab."

My dad had been talking about how the #blacklivesmatter movement reminds him of the 1960's.

"I thought we were done with all of this," he said, surprised that some marginalized groups were still struggling.

How did this shift happen? My dad was never a bigot, but nor would I say he had been a champion for minorities.

My cousin posted a video on Facebook about racial bias. The man in this video said people with a diverse group of friends have less racial bias than those who have a homogenous group of friends. This makes sense. For work, Jack read Blindspot by Mahzarin R. Banaji, a professor at Harvard, and Anthony Greenwald, a professor at the University of Washington. Their book, which was written before the video was produced, which further elaborates on this point.

And then it clicked. Every day, my dad spends two hours at the Memory Care Unit with my mom during lunch. My mom smiles, but she doesn't engage in conversation. So who does my dad talk to while he is with my mom? The nurses, the hospice workers, the aides, all of whom are women, and most of whom are women of color. They all speak English, and they all have been trained in how to take care of people with memory issues. Some of the women are black. One wears a hijab. Some were probably not born in the U.S., and they all are taking care of the woman my father loves. They are kind and tender to my mom and take care of her in a way my father cannot. He is deeply appreciative of their work.

There never would have been a time in my father's life where he would spend two hours a day with women of color. He was an accountant in a corporate office, and we lived in white neighborhoods. Now that my mother is in the Memory Care Unit, these women might be the only people he talks to all day. Sharon, my mom's hospice nurse, is hilarious, which seems incongruous for a woman working with people who are soon to die. Instead of being mournful, she tries to bring joy to not only my mother in her last days but to my father as well.

Some could say what these women do is menial labor: cleaning my mother, feeding her, changing her diapers. Or, this could be skilled work: managing her meds, tracking how much she eats and sleeps, and monitoring her moods, as changes in her temperament could be a sign of illness. In our modern times, we don't have a job category called "Caring," nor do we value this work as much as other types of work.  I am not talking about "caregiving" where items in that job description include things like washing hair or doing laundry. I mean caring. These women are like mothers to my mother, caring for her as if she were a toddler. They distract and redirect her when she is angry or ornery. When my mother was screaming "Bullshit!" they smiled and told my mother they love her. My father is genuinely appreciative. It doesn't matter what kinds of skills are needed for this job: They are doing work that he could not do. When they take care of her, they are also taking care of him.

Somewhere along the way my father shifted. Insults from Trump about people in these demographic groups became insults to the people who care for my mom, insults to the only people my dad might talk to on any given day.

Finding My (New) Tribe

I've been pondering lately about getting a job, writing a novel and taking care of my kids. This is nothing new. I've been having this same conversation with myself since 2001. This time it is different. This time, I feel anxious when I talk to myself instead of just wondering. Why do I feel anxious now when I didn't so many years ago? Is it because being a stay-at-home has a shelf-life and mine is going to expire soon? I feel like if I don't get a job now, it will be harder the longer I wait.

While those last two thoughts are probably true, there is something else. I am missing a tribe.

• When I worked, my co-workers were part of my tribe.
• When I was a stay-at-home mom, I had my other stay-at-home mom friends. They were my tribe. 
• When I started a writing class at the University of Washington, my fellow writers became my tribe. 
• When I was a PTA volunteer, fellow parents became my tribe. 
• When I coached my son's Lego team, the other coaches became my tribe. 
• When I ran for School Board, my campaign manager became my tribe. (We were a very small tribe.)
• When I joined the "get a job" group, those other moms became my tribe.

Now, I am done with volunteering and most of the moms in the "get a job" group got a job, I don't have a tribe. Some of them have gotten busier with other parts of their lives and found new tribes, which is understandable. Some of these women are still my friends, and I still enjoy their company. Yet, I miss our common purpose from when we were volunteering, as common purpose is what made us a tribe.

Snow Driving

Yesterday, my kids had a snow day. When the school's automated call came in saying school was canceled, I turned off my alarm clock and went back to sleep. I figured both kids would sleep in, but no. The Boy was up, talking on the phone, quietly hovering around my bedroom, waiting for me to wake up. As soon as I stirred, he pounced.

"Can you drive me to View Ridge Park?" he asked. 

Um, no, I thought. They canceled school because of bad driving conditions, not because the snow is pretty and people should spend the day making snowpeople and drinking hot chocolate. Plus, I'd have to drive up and down a few steep hills to get there. I have never driven in Seattle in the snow, mainly because I have been too afraid to drive my car off of my hill with a 15% grade. I've seen all-wheel drive cars speed up our hill, and then slide back down. Pemco Insurance has a Northwest Profile for "First Snowflake Freakout Lady." That is me.

"Maybe," I said. "Let's see how the roads are. Maybe you can take a bus." The Boy then decided to put on his shoes, walk to the coffee shop around the corner, and get breakfast. I went upstairs and looked out his window to get a better view of the giant hill on NE 55th Street. In five minutes, I saw one car drive down, and no cars drive up. Forget it.

When he can back, his plans had been updated. He wanted me to drive him to a friend's house in Meadowbrook, a few miles away.

"You can take Ravenna Blvd to 15th to Lake City, and then you'll be fine," he said. "Ravenna Blvd. looks good. Lake City will be better." The day before, the rest of my family went skiing at Snoqualmie where the pass was closed in the morning for too much snow. As soon as the pass opened, they left. The Boy was thinking if our all wheel drive car can manage driving on the highway with snow and ice, surely it can handle the side streets.

The Boy was kind and sweet and batting his puppy dog eyes at me. "Okay," I said, "but you might have to walk the last three blocks if the side streets are bad."

"Sure," he said.

We got in the car and drove up the hill--no problem. We got on Ravenna Blvd--no problem. We got on 15th--no problem. We got on Lake City Way--no problem. We got to the Meadowbrook side streets--no problem. We were one of a handful of cars on the bare and wet roads.

The drive home was equally uneventful. I was worried that the hardest part would be finding a place to park. Parallel parking on a hill is hard enough without snow and slush, but I made it to the top of the hill and parked--no problem. It was almost as if the snow in Seattle was part of a conspiracy to give everyone a day off of work and school.

For the past twelve years I've lived in Seattle, I haven't driven in the snow. Some of those years, I didn't have an all-wheel drive car, but still. While there is something homey and cozy about staying home when it snows, I can't believe how much I missed.