More Skiing

Today was day four of skiing at Whistler, and I survived. A few observations in no particular order.

• My feet are cold. Tonight we watched a Big Air slope style competition while standing on the sidelines instead of in the plaza on a big screen. Standing on the sidelines means standing in the snow.

View of the plaza from the sidelines where people stand and their feet don't get as cold, but their view isn't as awesome.

A skier gets pulled up to the jump via snowmobile.

The landing for the Big Air competition

• Weather can change on a dime on a big mountain.

View from a run yesterday

View from the top of the run two runs later

View from the gondola as I downloaded yesterday

View without raindrops

Today, two inches of powder accumulated...during lunch.

• I wish Jack had taken more vacation when I wasn't working. Now that I am working and am not free to travel at will, his interest in traveling with the family has gone up. I am not complaining, just wish he would have thouht of this before I returned to the 9-to-5. My company has a reasonably generous vacation plan, so I am not complaining about that. I just wished he used more of his vacation time when I was around. As much as I like my job, breaks are necessary.
• If I lost some weight, I'd have less mass, and then I'd ski slower without having to work at skiing slower. I am the only person in the world who thinks skiing slower is better than skiing all out in a straight line.
• I feel like an old lady when I ski sometimes. Skiing is a time for weird thoughts. I realized that with this next birthday, I will be the same as my grandma when she became a grandmother. Oy.  Fucking. Vey. I could ask my dad to confirm, but I think I am right. Actually, I don't really want to know. And my mother was not an old grandma. She was a regular age grandma for the time.
• Just when I feel like a grandma and think I am too old for this shit, I go in the lodge and see a bunch of seventy year old men covered in snow who have just gotten off some gnarly run. (Note: I will not be seventy on my next birthday, in case that might be confusing.) How do I know they are doing gnarly runs if they are the in lodge with me? I don't see them on the green runs I am on. There are women that age out there skiing, but far fewer. Why? Are women that age too smart to ski?
• The Boy is sending it. His sports medicine physician night not be too happy, but whatev. He's happy.

You Have Nothing to Prove, and Where Did I Go Right?

I need to remember this the next time I do anything. I have nothing to prove to anyone ever, including myself. Most especially myself.

You are welcome for this hard earned wisdom I learned today.

Yesterday was wet, so wet there was a rainbow.

I am with my family on Spring Break in Whistler. This was not my first choice for vacation, but everyone else wanted to go here, especially the Boy. To me, a big ski vacation is like going to Disneyland--the only reason I would go is because my kids want to go. And my kids have never wanted to see Disneyland or Disney World, so I dodged those bullets. When he was younger, the Boy wanted to see Legoland, the masculine version of Disneyland -- all building materials and no tulle in sight. When Claire-Adele was ten, she wanted to go to London and I was totally hip to that.

I wouldn't be complaining about skiing if I wasn't such a laggard compared to my family. Eight years ago, I was the best skier in my family, as the kids didn't know how to ski and Jack was meh. Jack and I thought skiing would be a great way to get out of the house in the gray and gloomy winters in the Pacific Northwest. Little did I know then my kids would take to skiing like rats to a sewer. Where did I go right?

I am not complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break. I am complaining about going to Whistler for Spring Break again. Seriously, I'd like to go someplace else for vacation. My friends on Facebook are in Mexico, Iceland, Hawaii, and Palm Springs. Claire-Adele's boyfriend went to Europe. I would like to be in any of those places. I have other friends who are in Ohio, Iowa and Boston for vacation. The midwest is looking good. The friend in Mexico is remarried and I am FB friends with his new wife, which is nice. I was so jealous of her pictures. What I am going to have to do to get a vacation in Mexico where I can sit on the beach and/or poolside while someone brings me cervezas? Get divorced, remarried, and find someone who wants to go to Mexico for vacation? That's a bit extreme, if you ask me.

Not exactly a bluebird day.

Instead of floating in the ocean in Maui, I am burning my thighs, hamstrings and glutes in very wintery weather. This morning, the snow at 6,000 was firm. Lower down in the middle of the afternoon, it was heavy and wet. Very heavy and very wet. And the runs here are long. Very long. Which means unless I stopped and rested, my legs got really tired. Pre-ACL tear, I loved it when my thighs burned when I skied. Post-ACL tear, I freak out when my legs burn.

A few runs after lunch, I left my family on Blackcomb and I went back to Whistler on the Peak-to-Peak. Whistler was blustery. Not regular blustery, but mountain blustery. I decided to try to the snow lower on the mountain, which was--as mentioned before--heavy and wet. The Eskimos must have a name for this shit, but likely not. Or they do now with the global warming. They probably call it something like snow that should melt if it weren't for the vast amount of it keeping it cold itself. My daughter called it mashed potato snow. This was more like mud snow, except it was fast. I hated this snow.

More than I hated this snow, I hated myself for thinking I could get down. At the mid-station, I could have ridden the gondola back down. There was even a nice sign "Tired? Cold? Ride the Gondola down!" Did I listen to the sign? No. I thought if I rested a bit my legs would feel better and I could make it down. So I rested. Nevermind my legs were pooped. Nevermind I asked some old timer on mono-ski what the snow was like, and he said "Just as bad as this here, except worse."

Did I listen to my legs, the sign at the gondola and an expert old guy skier?

No. I did not.

I can make it down, I told myself.

But you want to ski another day, I told myself back.

You did it yesterday and it was a piece of cake, I told myself again. And the snow doesn't look that bad. It could be fine.

Alright, I told myself. I can do this.

Are you sure? There is no shame in taking the gondola down, thought my sensible, sane, conservative self. You've already skied down 2,800 vertical feet. That's enough.

You can handle another 1,000 vertical feet, I told myself. Come on. What are you, some kind of a wuss? Besides, it will be fun.

Fun. Right. I wouldn't talk to my best friend like that, but I talk to myself like that. That is messed up. What is more messed up is that no one else was there pushing me to go down. As much as I'd like to, I cannot blame Jack, Claire-Adele, or the Boy. I brought this whole disaster on myself.

The snow was a mess. When I made it down the first turn, I seriously thought about marching back up. There was one steep spot that wasn't too steep except for the shit condition of the snow. I had to side step down. I had no pride. I was snowplowing part of it. Evan, my physical therapist, would tell me I was good at recruiting other muscles to do the work in my physical therapy, which is not a good thing for physical therapy when you are trying to re-activate your quadriceps. Recruiting other muscles was fantastic today when I was trying to get down the hill.

All of this makes me forget how much fun I have skiing. Skiing is like the little girl with little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it horrid.

We only have three more days here before we head back to Seattle. Tomorrow, I will listen to my sensible self.

Views from Peak-to-Peak

He's Back

Five weeks after he broke his collarbone, the Boy was back on skis this weekend. The sports medicine doc--the same guy I saw when I tore my ACL--said the Boy could go on the greens and the groomers with his mom after six to eight weeks. No "sending it" until twelve weeks. Jack and I decided the Boy needed to get back on the mountain for his sanity and ours, collarbone be damned.

"The Boy doesn't fall when he skis," said Jack. "Well, he doesn't fall when he regular skis. That doesn't count jumps or rails."

"I am not worried about the Boy as much as I am worried about him getting plowed over by other people," said Dr. Kary. His own ten year old son got creamed by a guy the size of a linebacker the previous weekend while snowboarding.

Friday afternoon, I got a text from the Boy.

The Boy: Let's just say I have to go skiing tomorrow.

Me: Can you find a friend to take you?

The Boy: (Crickets.)

Hmmm, I thought. When I got home, I asked if anyone could take him.

"Nah," he said. "I am going to stay on the blues and greens." Jack was worked this past weekend. "Can you take me?"

I agreed. Saturday morning, the Boy woke me up. He came into my bedroom and started clapping. (I'll have to remember this the next time I need to wake him.)

"Let's get moving," he said.

Dude, I thought. It's Saturday. Let me sleep. "You can pack up the skis and equipment," I said, rolling over and hugging my pillow. He went to the basement and gathered the gear while I ate breakfast and walked the dog.

As we were getting on to I-90 from 405--about twelve minutes from home because I was driving wicked fast--I asked if he had packed my boots.

"Fuck," he said.

"I can rent boots," I said.

"No, you'll be happier in your own boots. and you'll need to use shitty rental skis. We can go back and get them." So we did. I drove back to Seattle. The Boy got my boots and we drove off.

"I didn't want someone else's parents to be liable if I got hurt while skiing with their kid," he said. The other part was he didn't want to ski with his friends on his first turn back.

"Besides," he said. "I am going to teach you how to ski. You need to improve your form. This will be work. This will not be cruising down the mountain for fun. This will be your job."

Since my ACL injury, I have been stuck on the greens. Last year, I asked my physical therapist if I should take a ski lesson to get my groove back.

"You might," said Evan. "That might help." I stalled on the idea because I wasn't sure I wanted to be pushed. I was comfortable skiing on the greens. I wasn't sure I wanted to make it to the blues.

We got to Summit West, the beginner hill, a place where my son would typically not hang out with his friends except for the dudes who like Wildside and the mini-terrain park.

The Boy hit the top of Pacific Crest while I was putting on my knee brace. I thought he might not be serious about teaching me until I got a text from him asking where I was. By time I got to the green lift, he was there waiting for me. On the lift, he asked in a drill sergeant voice "Do you want to ski better than you did before?" I almost barked back, "Yes sir."

"Let's go," he said. When we got to the top of the lift, he gave me directions. "Go down, do a few turns, then stop."

I followed his instructions.

"Your form doesn't suck," he said. "Try it again." After two runs, he was still amazed. "Your form isn't shit. Let's go to Pacific Crest. You can do it. You need to build up speed so it is easier to turn."

When we got to Pacific Crest, we watched me on a steeper section. "You lift your uphill foot when you turn. Don't do that. Keep it down. Roll back and forth from your uphill and downhill ski when you turn, Keep your skis flat in the middle when you are going straight."

I did what he said, and followed him down the mountain. I watched his form and followed his tracks. I watched his posture, and when he bent his knees, and tried to copy him like I did took ballet lessons as a kid.

Don't think, I said to myself. Just let your body mimic what he is doing. I was easily skiing the steepest hill I have since I tore my ACL. Here I was thinking I needed to hire ski instructor, when I have a coach right here in my family, and he didn't charge me $150 to spend an afternoon on the hill with him.

Everything was fine until the middle of the afternoon. The Boy and I were on the lift with two other people. I was in the far right side of the chair and the Boy was next to me. As we got off the lift, the girl next to Peter crossed her skis with him, and then his skis crossed into my path. I was afraid to get off the chair, until it started to turn and go back down the hill when I jumped off. The chair stopped, and the Boy and I were down on the ground.

Fuck, I thought. I've known people who have gotten hurt getting plowed over by nubes getting the chair lift. "Are you okay?" I asked him.

"I'm fine," he said. I felt fine, too. We both survived the beginner crashing off the chair.

After that, the Boy wanted to go his own way. He wanted to hit the moguls and the black runs to shred the gnar. He left me for the afternoon. At the end of the day, he met at the bottom of Pacific Crest, and we did one last run together.

We both are back.

View from the lift.

A Ski, a Pole and a Bone; or "Karma is a B*tch"

The only thing that the Boy hasn't broken this season is his will... and boots. He broke a pair of goggles, too. He went shopping today to get new poles.

Exercise v. the Stock Market, or The Boy v. Me

Today, Jack and the Boy went skiing. Last week, the Boy broke one his skis trying to nail a 3, but he tail dragged the landing and the ski cracked.* This week, the Boy got new skis. I heard the dudes at the ski shop gave the Boy fist bumps for breaking a ski. "You are doing it right!" they said. I knew the Boy was going to try the gnarly stuff today, so I let Jack and the Boy have their male bonding experience. Claire-Adele is going to the Winter Ball tonight, so I stayed home and to make sure all of that went according to plan.  She has it all organized, but Jack didn't know if he'd be back in time to drive Claire-Adele and her boyfriend to the dance. Which meant I went to the YMCA and then went to lunch with a friend.

New skis

At the YMCA, I ran on the treadmill. I had been running for 17:28 minutes listening to Alicia Keys when--wham--my left knee decided to stop working.

Fuck. This is the same knee I with the ACL, MCL and meniscus I tore two years ago.

I think I over-extended my knee and pulled whatever muscle that is. I had to turn the treadmill off and hobble to the front desk and asked if someone could help me get to my car. I could walk (kind of), but my leg was really stiff. I parked two blocks away as there was no parking in the YMCA parking lot because

a) It was Saturday morning, a popular time to exercise,
b) It is January, a popular time to exercise, and
c) It was raining and the even though we Seattlites are a hardy breed, sometimes it is nicer to exercise indoors when the weather outside sucks.

One of the guys who finished working out himself let me grab his arm and walked me back to my car. We chatted while his wife took their screaming toddlers to the Farmers' Market. He only gets half-points for his Boy Scout badge for helping an old lady cross the street as his good deed got him out of a dreadful chore. Nevertheless, his help was invaluable. The biggest thing he did was talk to me to distract me from my achiness.

"Exercise is supposed to be good for you in the long-term," he said. "But somethings things don't work out in the short term."

Exercise > Sitting on the couch

"Just like the stock market," I said. "It goes up for time but every now and then it takes a nose dive."

Stock Market Long-Term Gains > Money in a Mattress

Yep. In another nose dive. At least now I have a better sense of how to treat it. Compared to two years ago, I figured out much faster what I could and couldn't do when I walked, like bend my knee. I know ibuprofen is my friend. I know how to test if moving makes my leg better or worse. And most importantly, I know that almost no one tears their ACL while running on a treadmill.

Still, it makes me wonder if I would have been better off skiing with Jack and the Boy today. I'll never know, but I could guess.

The Boy does this and bounces back. I am borderline immobile from the treadmill. Perhaps the most important part of this isn't whether I ski or not, but rather my age and general fitness.

Fourteen year old boy > Forty-something mom

* Translation -- He did a jump, tried to do a 360 degree spin, landed on the back of his ski and it cracked.

(Second) Worst. Ski. Day. Ever.

Some people say that any day on the slopes is a good day. Those people probably have never been taken down the hill on the sled by the ski patrol. My worst day skiing was the day I tore my ACL. My second worst day skiing ever was yesterday.

Saturday, I took the Boy and one of his friends to Snoqualmie. It was the first day Central was open. The boys had wanted to go to Alpental, but I wanted to stay on one of the smaller hills. I started my morning on the green run, Holiday, at Central while the boys went on the blues and blacks.  Holiday was one of the steeper green hills I’ve been on since I tore my ACL.

After about fifteen runs, I was bored. I watched several new skiers head over to the steeper terrain and thought I can do that. I've done it before. After lunch, I decided to go down Alpine. Alpine is a blue run that I have done dozens of times before I tore my ACL. I was feeling good on the greens. I figured I was mostly afraid and fear was holding me back. I did fine on the main runs at Crystal two weeks earlier.

I got on Central Express, the chairlift to the top of Alpine. The chairlift was a four-seater, and it flew up the mountain. The lift to the green hills are often fixed grip and they crawl and creep up the hills. I had forgotten how fast these new lifts are. As I was riding up, I thought about the Ski Patrol guy I met on the lift last week at West. He tore his ACL twenty years ago and was now going to skin up the mountain and ride through the back country. Cool, I thought. This guy is my inspiration.

Alpine has four main parts to the run: first, a downhill curve then a second steep part, then a third part which is not that steep and then the flat run-out at the bottom. The first part is a soft gentle curve. I manage this part just fine. It was a little bit harder than I remembered but nothing impossible. The cover on the mountain was thin, so they might not have groomed this run. There were more bumps and unevenness than I would have liked. I almost lost it once, but I recovered before I hit the ground.

The second part nearly killed me. I felt like I was going down to straight vertical drop. The snow was on groomed and it had small moguls in spots. I was terrified. How am I going to get to the bottom of this hill? I thought about taking off my skis and walking down the mountain. I nixed that idea because I'd have to get to the edge of the run and to get to the edge I have to ski there and I didn't want to do that.

Fear was kicking my ass.

Fear = 1

Lauren = 0

I was in the middle of the hill and stuck. I couldn't go back to the top and beg the lift ops guys to let me download. Instead, I turned my skis perpendicular to the fall line and marched down the hill sideways. I flattened out all of the bumps in my path, as if I were a one-woman grooming machine.

When I made it down the second part, I thought I was in luck. I didn't remember the third part being hard at all.

I was wrong.

Fear = 2

Lauren = 0

The snow cover at the edges of the run was thin. Instead of being wide open with flat parts, this was a narrow chute with bushes and ice puddles on the side. I sidestepped down this part, too. Last week, the Boy told me I should ski faster and harder, so when I crash my skis will come flying off and I won't tear my ACL. He thinks I tore my ACL because I was going to slow when I crashed two years ago. This is coming from a fourteen year old who thinks he is indestructible.

As I was slowly sidestepping down the mountain, I watched old pros fly by with grace and ease. I watched elementary school aged children turn and pass me. The only people going slower than me were a dad and his five year old daughter. As I watched people of all ages and abilities ski by, I thought of my physical therapist, Evan. I love Evan. He is a great guy and I would recommend him to anyone. But I never want to see him again. Ever. Falling is part of skiing, but I don't want a fall that will cause me to struggle walking for a year.

The fourth, flat part I managed okay. Because it was flat.

It took me almost an hour from when I left the lodge after lunch to when I skied past the lodge. I was ready to hang up my skis forever after my run on Alpine. Maybe life in the lodge isn't so bad, I thought. No, the other voice in my head fought back. Sitting the lodge sucks. You need to do another run. Go back to Holiday, even if it is dull. So I went to Holiday.

Why couldn't I do the Alpine run? Did I lose that much leg strength over two years since I tore my ACL? Even with all of my physical therapy? I couldn't believe that I had the weakest legs of anyone on the mountain. That couldn't be possible, or could it? Were my legs drained like a battery after my accident, and they have never fully recharged? Will they ever fully recharge?

In the end, the greens were too easy and the blues were too hard. Where was my "just right" run? After skiing greens all day, my thighs didn't burn at all. Usually, after a good day of skiing, my quads are on fire in a good way. If I don't need a salt bath or twenty-minutes in a hot tub after skiing, I really haven't skied. Likewise, I want sore muscles, not torn ligaments or broken bones.

I wish I could design my own ski runs. The Boy has a video game where he creates his own race tracks. My neighbor designs landscapes for gold courses. Unfortunately, ski runs are harder to modify and change, otherwise, I'd make a run that got a little bit harder every time I did it until I was as good as I once was.

Take it easy...

Last Friday, Jack and I took the Boy to see the latest Warren Miller advertisement ski documentary at the Seattle Center. We ate dinner at the Center House and walked over to the McCaw Hall where they were going to show the movie. Through the window, the Boy saw the crowd.

"Flannel and beards," he said. "It looks like Alpental. These are my people."

McCaw Hall is where I have season tickets to the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The ballet crowd is decidedly different. I would have let this event be a father-son bonding experience, except Jack was on call and he might have needed to bail; therefore, I needed to be there in order to drive the Boy home in case Jack needed to go into the hospital. I had a long week at work, and needed a break. I wanted to do something more relaxing than watch an adrenaline junkie movie.

I've watched another skiing movie with the Boy, something that takes place in Norway and has English subtitles through half of it, but the plot was really easy to understand.

1. Crazy and talented young men seek adventure.
2. Crazy and talented young men ski down some super steep and dangerous shit.
3. Crazy and talented young men survive.

Earlier in the week, I made plans to take the Boy and a friend skiing on Saturday at Crystal. This was early season snow, and the Boy was ready to hit the pow. This movie only amped him up, while it made me more more terrified to get back on the slopes...until the middle.

A snowboarder who jumps off cliffs recalled a story from his grandfather.

"Take it easy," said the snowboarder, "but always take it." In watching two hours of testosterone fueled insanity, I found a golden nugget.

When I said I was going to drive to Crystal, I had every expectation that I might not ski. The next morning, the Boy packed up my skis along with his. In my bag, I packed my helmet, gloves and a book to read in case I bailed and decided not to ski.

While the boys took off on the blue and black runs, I went on the beginner hill. After ten runs, I thought of the what the snowboarder's grandfather had told him. Take it easy, but take it.

I did a few more runs on the beginner hill, but I was getting more and more afraid of the beginner skiers and snowboarders. One woman fell off the lift after it got four feet off the ground. A father with his kindergarten age son didn't get off this lift and the top and had to jump off as it went around the loop. I rode the lift once with a (water) skier from Australia. This was his third run ever on a snowboard. I feared getting off the lift with this guy.

I'm not going to get any better on the bunny hill, I thought. I could only progress so much on flat terrtain. I decided to get on the real mountain around lunchtime. Most people headed into the lodge so the lines were very short. I got to the top, looked around for the easiest way down, and went. I was terrified and exhilarated at the same time, much like young men and women in the movie from the night before. My threshold for what would be considered terrifying was much less than theirs, but it was still terror nonetheless.

I did a few runs, and went in for lunch. After lunch, I did another run. The snow was soft earier in the day, and now there were bumps from where everyone had skied. My legs were tired, and I went back to the bunny hill. It was time for me to take it easy. I realized I was spending too much energy turning to get down the hill, and in return I'd get tired much faster. Before I tore my ACL, I could ski all day for days in a row. Now I was afraid the burn in my thighs might mean I might get hurt.

As I was taking my last run at 3:55 p.m., minutes before the lifts closed, I got a text from the Boy. We are at the lodge, ready to go. They were tired before me, a first. The problem I had been wrestling with at work seemed to fade into the background as my struggle to ski came to the front. As my friend Christina told me, I was using my body and giving my brain a break. I felt at peace, more than I had felt in a long time. I was happy to have taken it, to have gotten back on the snow.

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.

Beer v. Clean Water

I was at Alpental yesterday afternoon. The Boy was skiing—he wanted to hit the last day of the season. It was a warm and sunny afternoon. All of the other area ski resorts were closed, and Alpental was packed.

“I’ve never seen lift lines here so long,” he said as he examined the crowds.

I was hoping for a quiet afternoon to look out at the mountain and get some work done. I brought along my laptop and planned to catch up on some writing and balancing the checkbook. I was met with a party on the patio, lots of people eating and drinking, as the B-52’s Rock Lobster played on the outdoor speakers. Since I wasn't skiing myself, I didn't feel like I earned a beer or would be fully welcomed in this impromptu Margaritaville celebrating the last day of the ski season. This environment inspired people watching, not heads-down work.

I noticed a large number of people drinking beer. I saw a bearded man with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other dancing with a toddler. The toddler was drinking something, and I hoped it wasn’t beer. The toddler was stumbling around, but most toddlers do. Maybe two hundred years ago, people would let toddlers drink beer instead of risking water-borne diseases like dysentery and cholera.

Hundreds of years ago, most water wasn’t safe to drink. Instead, people would drink beer, wine, and spirits which were at times safer than drinking water. This got me wondering: Did clean water make our world smarter because people weren’t drunk all of the time? Did society’s collective cognitive abilities increase with clean water? Would Alexander Graham Bell have invented the telephone if he were hammered all of the time? Would Thomas Edison have invented the light bulb if he drank every night? Maybe they were drunks, but I doubt it. Ernest Hemingway drank excessively, and that didn’t seem to limit his talents. Writers seem to be the categorical exception to the drunks aren't geniuses rule. 

Claire Adele is a strong student of U.S History, and we often hear obscure facts about our country’s past during dinner. I’ll ask her to correlate the timing of invention of clean water with the timing of major industrial and economic developments. Having studied history myself, I know there are other causes of the Industrial Revolution(s). Still, this idea of the collective sobering up creating technological advances could make an interesting thesis for a paper.

Testing, Testing -- 1, 2, 3

My family and I got back from Whistler last night. This morning, I flipped the calendar to May and was reminded that my daughter has an AP exam Friday, the SAT Saturday, and two AP exams next week.

What was I thinking by letting her go to Whistler this weekend? Jack had planned this trip early last week. This was not something that had been on our calendar for weeks or months, as our Spring Break trip to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. If it had been, perhaps I would have looked at the calendar more closely then kiboshed it.

When I ran for School Board, high stakes tests were a major topic, but tests like the SAT and the AP exams are out of bounds for local jurisdictions. One school board can't ban these tests because practically every college looks at them for incoming freshman. I was in favor of moderate testing of students to help close the opportunity gap. Years ago, I was at a fundraiser for educational causes. The sponsoring organization gave the principal of Garfield High School an award for his work. They showed a video of the principal walking around the school, talking about his accomplishments. One of the highlights was a program that taught sophomores to read. I was appalled, not at the program, but at the idea that these kids could so easily have slipped through the cracks by making it to tenth grade unable read. If we need tests for elementary students to make sure they can read so a district can provide the right services to kids to get them up to speed, then I am for it.

Should I have kept my daughter home so she could cram for these tests? She knows how to read and is reasonably accomplished academically. She is a diligent student and has been studying hard in all of her classes. If anything, Jack and I think at times she studies too much. When I asked her last week if she wanted to go on the trip, she didn't vex. She said yes immediately. The Boy said Claire Adele had a major case of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Maybe she did.

Did we do the right thing by letting her take a break? When the Boy was in second grade, he qualified for the district's gifted program. A parent asked me what we did to prepare him for the test. I was a little naive about the question and said "I took him to the Varsity for breakfast before the test. He had pancakes and bacon." Taking it easy before the exam served the Boy well.

While I firmly believe in the power of cramming for tests, maybe bringing my daughter along for a ski weekend might have been a good idea. Maybe she needed space to relax after working so hard this year. In twenty years, she'll remember this weekend, not how well she did on the AP exams, unless she bombs the tests so badly she doesn't get into any of her dream colleges. I don't want her life filled with regret. Or, maybe she'll realize she can have a happy, productive life without getting into a competitive college. Jack and I rode the ski lift this weekend with a guy who was about my age who is a helicopter ski guide in the winter and an EMT in the summer. He seemed happy with his lifestyle.

"I see all of my friends who have been working hard at jobs for twenty years," the helicopter ski guide said. "What does it get them?"

Maybe I am being selfish. If we don't take family trips like these now, we may never have the chance again. In sixteen months, Claire Adele will be off at college. There are less than seventy more weekends before she leaves, and many of those are already booked with camp, sports and other events. 

In the end, it isn't my life--it's Claire Adele's. She often puts school work before friends and activities.  Maybe a trip to Canada was the only way to make her not spend the entire weekend cramming. For the rest of her life, she will have choices to make between work and play. I hope for her own sake, she chooses wisely.

Blackcomb

The Boy wanted to go skiing, so Jack decided to take him to Whistler this weekend. Claire-Adele and I decided we didn't want to be left behind, so we joined their boys' weekend. When Claire-Adele was ten, she and I went to London for a week. It was a beautiful mother-daughter trip, and I should have let Jack and the Boy have this to themselves. But I didn't. When Claire-Adele goes to college in a year and a half, Jack and the Boy will have three years for father-son bonding. I don't feel so bad now. Besides, they ski a lot together during the winter.

Friday night, we crossed the border into Canada at Lynden with four pairs of skis on the roof. I was going to give it a go. We had a long, slow drive from Seattle to Whistler, arriving at 10:30 or so. My kids were so cranky and fussy you would have thought they were toddlers. Or teenagers.

The Boy was awake at 7:00. He is on a club soccer team, and skiing is his second sport. This past year, he has skied thirty days and counting. One of Jack's friends said you need thirty days in a season to dramatically improve. To contrast, I've skied four days so far this season. I've asked the Boy if he wants to join a ski team, but he says no. He prefers free-skiing and jumping in the terrain parks instead of racing, although he is pretty fast. Think of a football running back or any soccer player versus a track star. Speed is a key element for running backs and soccer players, but they do more stuff. The Boy likes the stuff. He can be grumpy and sour in the damp and dreary Seattle winter, and then a day of skiing lifts his mood.

He heard Jack and I talking and popped into our bedroom with a giant smile on his face, apparently having forgotten the snottiness between him and his sister last night. The lifts didn't open until 10, so we had three hours to kill before we left. The Boy was happy to run into the Village to get breakfast with his dad. In a normal world, the Boy would be in bed on the weekend and wouldn't talk until fed. Now he was chipper.

After we ate breakfast and got to the gondola, I was walking around looking a little lost when one of the Whistler guides approached me.

"Which green runs are open?" I asked.

The woman was shy of seventy years old and probably been skiing for sixty-five of her years.

"There aren't any beginner runs open," she said. "It's just the top of Blackcomb. Are you a beginner?" she asked, looking alarmed. Later I thought I should have told her I was a re-beginner, someone used to be decent and then needed to start over. Only the diehards come out for spring skiing after Whistler  Mountain is closed for the season. When we have skied here before, we shave spent most of our time on Whistler, riding the Peak-to-Peak to check out a few runs on Blackcomb and to admire the epic view.

I told her I am recovering from an ACL surgery and I've skied a few times already, but I needed to warm up. She looked relieved and told me where to go.

"There is a steep section at the top of the Excelerator Express lift, and then you take the Jersey Cream Express to the Expressway, and Easy Out runs," she said. "You can take Catskinner Chair back up and warm up on those. After that, Seventh Heaven is supposed to be good today. Lots of easy and wide blue runs," she said.

"Thanks, I said. "I've skied Seventh Heaven before I tore my ACL," I said. I have. Those are great runs, probably my favorites. That was back when I could ski all day for three or four days. I am not waxing nostalgic about my youth when I could do anything. It isn't fair to compare my current state to when I was twenty-three. I could ski for days back when I was in my mid-forties instead of my late forties.

"Good luck!" she said. I would need it.

Here I wish I had a brain-to-blog app to track all my thoughts as I went down the runs. I'll try to re-create the highlights here.

When I got to the top of the Execelator Express lift, I had to take a steep little hill down to the Jersey Cream Express lift. The kind Whistler Ambassador warned me about this. Everyone getting off the gondola was heading down this run. The steepness alone wasn't the issue. In addition to being crowded, the snow was concrete. I couldn't stick my pole into the snow it was that hard. This is a hazard of spring skiing. The snow melts in the afternoon and can be wonderfully soft, but then overnight temps dip below freezing and the next morning you have concrete.

I stood at the top of the lip and looked down. There was no way I could carve on this. I thought about downloading back down on the chairlift I just came up and then taking the gondola to the base. Jack paid for four lift tickets, but the exchange rate is 73 American cents for a Canadian dollar. In effect, my ski ticket is free and if we pretend we paid American dollars for Canadian lift tickets.

I decided to give it a shot. I watched other people ski to see if anyone found soft snow. I saw softer snow to the far right of the run. I moved to the left and skied across the width of the run so I wouldn't have to turn much.

A run that should have taken a minute took me ten. Then I wondered how I was going to get back down the mountain. What if there weren't any open green runs back to the gondola? What if they didn't download on the chairlifts?

I got to the top and skied down Easy One. This is a family, beginner area. It, too, was concrete. My kids had gone ahead and already did a run in the time to took me to get to the top of the lift. Jack texted them, and they met us mid-run, and then skied off.

The last time I was at Whistler, I thought the Easy One run was the easiest, most boring run in the world. I understood why people wanted to ski more challenging stuff. Now, my legs were tired by the end of the run. There was one part where Jack told me I had to get my momentum up to make it up a small hill. I managed to do that, and that was the fastest I skied all day. My right leg was more tired than my left which was wearing the brace. I wondered if I should get a brace for my right leg, too. While the steepness wasn't any worse than what I had been skiing earlier this winter at Snoqualmie, the difference was the length of the run. This run was ten times longer--maybe more--than Little Thunder. I was tired, both mentally and physically. I had to concentrate the entire time. There wasn't free space in my brain where I could relax and be in the zone. My brain didn't trust my body to take the runs without intervention.

I took a break for an hour at the Rendezvous Cafe while Jack and the kids skied some more. At lunch, the Boy was dejected when I asked how it was.

"The terrain park had two parts," he said. "One was too easy and the other one I would have killed myself." I had seen the jumps in terrain park on the Catskinner lift. I saw people getting air for several seconds while they did backflips. It looked cool, but it also looked deadly if you didn't know what you were doing. I am glad the Boy didn't try them. "If you make a mistake waterskiing, you splash," said the Boy. "If you crash on these jumps, you will crack."

After lunch, I decided to ski back down while Jack and the kids skied the glaciers at the top of the mountain. It had snowed about two inches while I was taking a break. When I got back out, the skiing was remarkably better.  I took the Easy Way Down, which is a road run which felt about three miles long. My Toyota RAV4 could have done this run, no problem. The challenge with this run was the narrowness and the tiny signs orange signs the size of my glove along the boundary that said

WARNING. Out of Bounds Area. Not Patrolled.

with a drop off on the left side of the run. (I don't know exactly how small the signs were--I didn't want to get that close to the edge to see.)

Great, I thought. If I fall off the edge here, no one will ever find me. There probably isn't even a cell signal out here. A bear would probably find my remains in the spring. This horrible inner-dialogue haunted me on the way down. Once I got out of the road run section and back into the regular part, the fog came in. It was more like a cloud where you can't see anything. Finally, I got to Solar Coaster, which was going up, and Wizard Express, which was going down. My plan was to take a green run back to the top of the gondola and ride back down, but I couldn't see the run that would take me there.

Fuck it, I thought. We are skiing again tomorrow. I'll download to the bottom and walk back to the car.

I took a picture at the bottom at the end of the day. I didn't want to press my luck by taking a picture at the top. There is a mountain in the background, but it is covered in fog. Trust me.

As I was walking back to the car, I crossed a footbridge over a creek. I stopped to look at the water that was melting off the mountain. A majority of the water in the creek had once been snow. This water had been on a transformative journey. It melted and was filtered and then picked up minerals as it ran through the rocks in the mountain.

I remember what my dad said a year and four months ago when I tore my ACL. "It's going to be all uphill from here, but when you get to the top, you'll be in really great shape."

Sixteen months ago, I couldn't walk, and now I am skiing again. Sixteen months ago, I was coming off the loss from the School Board election and was unemployed. Now I am in training for a new job that I'll start in August. As I stood at the bottom of the mountain looking at the creek, I thought about what my dad said and all of my uphill climbing last year.

I made it to the top of the hill. And I am in great shape.

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.

Symmetry and a Brace

I met with my orthopedic surgeon yesterday morning, followed by physical therapy. I sat on the exam table, and he picked up his my foot and shook it about.

"That is a strong leg," he told the medical student while nodding at me. "It seems stable. How do you feel?"

"I feel stronger than I did before the accident," I said. This is probably the strongest my leg has been since before I had the Boy.

"I think you can ski at the end of this season," he said. I didn't even ask. He volunteered it. "Stick to the cruisers and the groomers. No moguls, no black diamonds. Easy stuff."

"What about a brace?" I asked.

"It wouldn't make you bulletproof, but it will help with stability," he said. "Stick to easy runs where you have little chance of falling."

"Should I take a lesson before I go back out?"

He looked at me funny. "How good of a skier were you before?" he asked as if I were a total hack. I paused, and he replied, "I don't think you need a lesson." I thinking a lesson would be like a different version of the physical therapy I've been to in the past year. I'll wait and see.

After my appointment, I went to see Evan for physical therapy. I told him I am feeling fine, but I can still "feel my knee," whatever that means.

"Your brain expects symmetry," Evan said. "When something is off, it sends a message, and your brain starts paying attention. Changes in symmetry alert your brain to possible injury or illness. You will probably keep feeling this until your leg gets all of its strength back."

That explains a lot. It also means I have more work to do. I need to keep lifting weights, stretching, running, and doing the elliptical.

One of the tests for me to ski is to do a jumping test and see if my left leg is close to as strong as my right leg. At home, I put tape on the floor after each jump so I can ballpark if I am close or not. Monday, I jumped further with my left than my right. It was a miracle. I was hoping I would do as well in physical therapy where it counts. Jumping in my kitchen is like saying I can run a four-minute mile while on the jogging path, and then actually doing it in front of real judges with stopwatches and an accurately measured mile. One is not real, and one is. Practice is necessary, but performance counts.

I went to lift weights while he calculated my percentages. "You are at 92% for the triple jump and 88% for the side jumps." This was very good news. It means I am within range of skiing again.

After Evan, I met with the brace guy to get measured for a skiing brace. I am freaking out as I write this. I was measured for a skiing brace.

"What if I gain or lose weight?" I asked. "Will it still fit?"

"There is a two-inch margin so you will be fine," he said. "If you build more muscle, the brace will fit better." I am assuming he meant that the brace squishes and slides against pudginess.

"When will it be ready?" I asked. I was stalling, thinking maybe I could wait a week or a month or year or two to think about if I really wanted to ski again.

"Two weeks," he said. "Come in after your next physical therapy appointment, and you can try on the brace, and we can make all of the adjustments."

Wow. As the Boy would say, the shit is getting real. Do I really want to ski again? To get back on the horse that bucked me off, kicked me to the ground and tore my ACL? Am I crazy? I can hear my dad tease me when I was a kid and had to make a decision: "Do you really really really really really want to do this?" It is one thing to think about skiing in the distant future, and another thing to think about skiing in five weeks.

I told the Boy during dinner that I can ski this season, and he gave me a high five. Later that night, he asked me again if I was really going to try to ski in March. The Boy has a teenage memory, which means he is highly annoyed if he is told anything twice.

"Really?" he said. "You'll be skiing this year?" double-checking to make sure he heard right and wasn't hallucinating.

"It depends on the snow, but I am going to try," I said. Am I going on auto-pilot, skiing just because it is a goal, something to mark off the list in my recovery so I can say that I am done, healed, finished? Do I need an ending, closure, and is getting back on the mountain it? What about cross-country skiing or snow-shoeing? Those are snow sports that could substitute for skiing like whitefish and red dye stands in from crab sometimes. I didn't ask those questions when Don measured my thigh.

This is getting real.

Scene of the Accident

I took the Boy and one of his friends skiing today at Silver Fir, the place where I tore my ACL a little more than a year ago. I could have hooked the Boy up with a different friend whose dad was driving up, but the Boy had made plans with this other friend to ski today. These two boys talked amongst themselves and decided they could sucker one of out of four of their parents to drive them to the mountain. Since the friend’s parents are out of town and Jack was working, I drew the short straw and got to drive. (I didn't know I was the only one drawing a straw.) I could be sitting at home, drinking tea while working on a jigsaw puzzle or finishing a quilt.

Not that I mind sitting in the ski lodge. Skiing is a better use of the Boy’s time and a small investment in his mental health. Otherwise, he’d park his butt on the couch and surf the internet for hours. Skiing is nature and exercise therapy, plus social hour. It gives the teenage boy brain all sort of controlled experiences—the need for speed, taking risks, trying new and dangerous things, plus part of being part of a group of like-minded boys.

The last time I was at Silver Fir, I was dragged down the hill in a sled, unable to stand without my leg buckling. I am sitting in the lodge, looking at the lift line. I see the bench where I tried to stand after the Ski Patrol brought me to the bottom. The bottom of the hill looks steeper than I remember. I had thought the bottom of the Silver Fir run was practically flat. Now it looks too steep.

When we first arrived at the Silver Fir parking lot, I was excited, as excited as I might have been if I were skiing myself. I am glad I wasn’t tempted to bring my own skis today, but being here inspires me to try on my boots when I get home and practice walking around in the heavy footwear.

I am inspired to continue my physical therapy and work on my strength. In some ways, my legs feel stronger now than they have in the past ten years, perhaps since I’ve had kids. I might have had some residual strength in my thighs after Claire Adele was born. Before I had kids, Jack and I would bicycle as a hobby, taking long-distance rides. Two years ago, we brought our bikes to Victoria, British Columbia, and rode from the town up the Galloping Goose Trail to Sook. My legs were in decent shape after that weekend.

Most importantly, this trip to Silver Fir inspires me to try on my ski pants, the scariest part of starting ski season: will they fit, or will I need to go up a size?

I was talking to the boy and his friend that I might be psychologically if not physically ready to ski in the next month. “I won’t do Silver Fir as my first run,” I said. “I’ll probably want to start at Holiday or at West. Maybe I’ll even start on the magic carpet before I ride a lift.” The subtext of this conversation was when I start again, I will not be on the most challenging parts of the mountain. He should be glad I am driving him up now, and gracious when I start skiing again.

“Of course,” said the Boy. He seemed to understand.

The bench by the ski rack was where they brought the sled when I came down the mountain.

Horoscope, and Jealousy or Just Left Out?

I was reading Elle magazine this morning over breakfast (egg, bacon and cheese sandwich on a biscuit) when I came across my horoscope. "Zip up your puffer and hit the powder" read the first line.

Oy. Thanks, Elle. I have a few more steps to finish before I zip up my puffer and hit the powder.  As you all may know, I tore my ACL winter skiing, had surgery and can't ski until at least the end of February. The rest of my family skis once a week, more during Winter Break. I normally like Elle and have been a subscriber for years. I wanted to scream and laugh and cry as I read this. I don't blame the magazine because they don't know. It was a good thing I was eating something amazingly delicious to wash away the pain.

I was talking to my physical therapist, Evan, last week. It told him my family was skiing and I was stuck at home or in the lodge. "It sounds like you are jealous," he said, switching between physical therapist and regular therapist. I suppose physical therapists need to be somewhat like regular therapists to motivate and inspire their patients, as well as to listen to their woes. Sometimes I have a lot of woes.

Am I jealous, feeling left out, or both? I don't know if jealous is the exact word. I don't subscribe to skiing magazines or watch skiing videos. I don't aspire to ski beyond easy blacks or blues. Jack says there are people who take "bike walks" which is a leisurely bike ride where you look at houses and coast along. Jack doesn't think it is really biking until your heart rate is at 80% max and you are constantly pedaling. To make an analogy to skiing, I am a "ski walker," happy to go at my own pace and take in the scenery as I go down. I stop and smell the snowflakes. I don't need to go full blast to get the adrenaline rush. I get enough adrenaline starting at the top of the hill. I don't need to feel afraid to have fun.

Yet, given the choice between hanging out in a coffee shop or skiing, I'd ski. Given the choice between biking and skiing, I'd ski. Before my accident, I used to find a friend and we'd ski during the week when the lift lines were super short. I was totally fine skiing without my family. So maybe I am a little jealous.

I also feel left out. My kids and husband come back from skiing and I get a report on the conditions, runs, and crowds. I wish I were up there with them, to a certain extent. They are running on the black diamonds, and I would be on the blues. I'd be holding them back, making them ski at Snoqualmie Central instead of Alpental. Or I would find a blue run at Alpental that I could manage without killing myself, and do it over and over again.

It doesn't matter if Evan and I ever will get the bottom of if I feel jealous or left out. He got to the point which was starting me on skiing exercises so I'll be ready one day to zip up my puffer and hit the powder.

Skiing!!!

I went skiing yesterday. It was awesome. It has been more than nine months since my surgery, and I figured, yeah, I am ready. I am ready to go. When I got there, I scoped out the Magic Carpet and saw five year olds out there. I can do this, I thought. No problem. Those kids are more flexible than I am, but I follow instructions better.  

I put on my boots. I was glad I had been lifting weights and doing strength exercises. I forgot how heavy ski boots are. Maybe my next pair will be lighter. I snapped my boots into the skis and slowly started. I stayed on flat ground, close to the Magic Carpet. I rode the magic carpet a few times. I was the oldest person on the carpet except for instructors and parents teaching their kids how to ski.

Evan, my physical therapist, suggested I might try snow boarding. I could, but I already know how to ski, and snow boarding would be a whole new skill set. Maybe next week.

The freakiest part was getting on the chair lift. The second freakiest part was getting off the chair lift. The Boy and his friend were there as I glided down the green run. The bad part about green runs is that there are lots of beginners and the snow is kind of crappy. This snow was soft, as it was warm near the bottom of the mountain. I heard it was icier on the higher runs.

Just kidding! I didn't ski yesterday. I am practicing my fiction skills. I did drive the Boy and one of his friends to the slopes yesterday. (Claire-Adele went to another ski area with her friend and the friend's dad.)

I got up early, picked up the Boy's friend, and drove to Snoqualmie. The roads had no restrictions, which was good. The morning before, it was snowing and chains were required. We have an all wheel drive to help get us over the pass, but there is always some Chevette out there that thinks it doesn't need chains. Or a 4WD pick-up with an empty bed spinning out of control. Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with that.

I got the Boy his season pass and then went to the cafeteria, along with the other parents who don't ski.

Ugh. It was depressing.

All of the parents who don't ski sit in the seats that look out the windows and on the mountain. The tables and chairs aren't very comfortable, especially when you have to sit there from ten until three. There is a bar upstairs. I thought about going up there to see if they had more comfortable seating (they probably do) but I wasn't sure I wanted be in a bar at ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

In the end, it wasn't that bad. The resort doesn't have wifi, but I brought several magazines and a few books. The boys had a good time.

While I was in the lodge, I started thinking about what an odd sport skiing is. I can see how it probably got invented in the Swiss Alps where people needed to get around, and sleds were probably not practical for every situation. Think about it: people strap long sticks to the bottom of their feet and slide down a mountain. Not only is it weird, but people pay gobs of money for the privilege of doing this.

I suppose I will remember one day why it was fun when I get back on the mountain. It is like I have forgotten, like it doesn't exist any more for me except in an abstract way. It is as if I moved to a new country when I was small, and all I have left are vague memories of what my homeland was like.