Background and Foreground

The Boy is off to a Summer Ski Camp on Mt. Hood this week. He is not a racer, but a Freestyle skier which means he likes to jump off and on to things. We watched an old, old video on the website of the camp and kids come from all over the country and the world to ski on this Oregon glacier in the summer. We figured this was better than the Boy sitting on his bed for the entire summer looking at his phone. Neither Jack or I can ski off or on to things, so someone else needs to teach him. Better for the Boy to get some professional coaching on how to switch (ski backwards), do a 540 (spin around one and a half times off a jump), or do rails (ski on a rail). Why do they ski on rails? I have no clue. Maybe it's a skateboarding thing that became a ski thing.

I told Evan, my physical therapist, the Boy is going to Mt. Hood this week.

"I wanted to do that when I was a kid," he said.

"Does that make me the coolest mom in the world?"

"Yes," he said laughing. "That makes you the coolest mom in the world."

With other camps, Jack and I could guess what kinds of kids would be there, mainly because most of them were local. We know that Orkila kids tend to be outdoorsy. Kids at the Seattle Public Schools Summer Music camp tend to be musical, and he knows at least a handful of kids from band there. This camp, we have no idea who will be there. The Boy, coming from Seattle to Oregon, will almost be a local compared to kids from Vermont, Colorado or Belgium. Or, most of the kids at the camp could be from suburban Portland and he might be the only one who doesn't know someone already. Some of the parents might make large sacrifices to send their kids there. Some kids might be idle rich kids whose parents are looking for offload their offspring while they are in Provence for the summer.

Here are samples of two conversations Jack and I had with the Boy.

Mom: I bet there will be lots of nice kids there who are like-minded and love to ski. Kids would want to want to go there, versus parents forcing their kids to go there.

Dad: There might be some arrogant douchebags at this camp who are way better than you and have skied all over the world. Don't let them get you down.

I started thinking more about his camp. I have been stalking my son's Instagram account and the camp's Facebook page for pictures, but so far I've got nothing. I saw pictures from last week at camp, and the racers look like they have good form. I don't know from my own experience, but they look like skiers I've seen on television. I wonder how many of these kids might make the Olympics. While the odds are low that any one person makes the Olympics, the odds are in your favor if you ski in the offseason. 

I am feeling old this week. Jack and I did a five-mile hike with 1,100 feet of elevation at Rattlesnake Ledge. This is the first major uphill hike I've done since my surgery last year. My knee was fine, but it took a lot of concentration to make it to the top of the hill on the rocky trail. Yesterday, I met a woman for coffee who is considering applying to the Apprenti program that I am in. She is about my age, and we talked about our experience. She has worked in several fields like someone my age likely has.

To compare, I am talking to friends about our backgrounds and complaining about my knee, and my son is meeting people whose story isn't yet told. Will one of these kids he meets this week be standing on a podium in Beijing in 2022? Someplace TBD in 2026? These kids lives are all yet to be determined, all future and foreground. At my age, you wonder where people have been. At his age, you wonder where they'll go.