The following is a true story I wrote three or four years ago. After being unable to ride for seventeen days and also suddenly able to sense the slightest change in barometric pressure, thusly finding it possible to accurately predict impending bad weather for about nine months afterwards, I arrived at the conclusion that I had probably managed to break my tailbone. I made reference to this story in a previous blog, so here ya go:
There was a time in my life when I thought I could snowboard. I remember buying a cheap kid’s snowboard from Wal-Mart…the safe, single-strap, pop-off-incase-of-emergency kind of snowboard. Then the siblings and I would tromp through the snow to the neighbor’s snow-covered dirt piles and the Big Hill across the road. Those were intense times. Some days, when the weather was perfect and the snow was fast, we could probably get up to five, maybe seven miles an hour down those hills.
Eventually the day came when I graduated to Ben’s grown-up strap-in snowboard. That baby could fly. I built a jump for it half way down the hill on one inspired day. I probably caught six inches of air off that thing. Confident in my abilities was I.
So last week when the Baptists asked if I would like to join them on their ski/snowboard outing, I said, “Absolutely! I used to snowboard back in the day.” We met in the church parking lot on Saturday at 1300hrs. Those darling people…not only were they packed to the gills with food for later, they had extra equipment for stragglers, so I didn’t need to rent anything; snowboard, snow pants, gloves…I was good to go.
We went to a public ski place called Bristol Mountain
There is a device upon the bunny hill that is known as the “tow rope”. Designed with humiliation in mind, the tow rope drags uncoordinated people up to the top of the bunny hill in whatever way possible. I watched tiny athletic children grab onto the rope and zing to the top of the hill on their skis and snowboards. They made it look so easy. So I strapped one foot into my board and headed toward the rope. Foreign men stood in line behind me with big grins on their faces. It was like they could sense the fool I was going to make of myself. One of them began to give me semi-comprehensible instructions. I smiled, nodded, grabbed the rope, and promptly forgot everything he had just said. One would, after having fallen on their face in the snow, not two feet from the base of the bunny hill. I struggled to my foot, grabbed the rope, and promptly fell over again. Needless to say, I left my pride at the base of that accursedly, notoriously easy hill and quickly adopted a rhythm for getting to the top. Grip-fall-sprawl, grip-fall-sprawl, grip-fall-sprawl. It worked eventually. I got to the top of the hill and sat down. The foreign men walked past chattering and motioning toward me and grinning widely. If I understood Spanish I’m sure I would have heard, “Ha. First-timer. Too bad there’s no bunny bunny hill.”
I got both of my feet strapped into my board and stood up. And fell down. And stood up. And fell down. The bottom of my board was too slippery. Some idiot hadn’t thought to put any traction on there. Other people in my group shouted encouragement. Perfect strangers shouted encouragement. Weird. I finally got my balance and started down the hill. Half an hour later I was almost to the bottom. I had made it twenty feet and was feeling pretty confident, although I hadn’t remembered snowboarding being this difficult back in the day. I picked up some speed, caught an edge, and fell smack on my butt. My group murmured encouragement and suggested that we all head over to a big hill. Why not? I had had enough practice already. I couldn’t steer, stop, or stand up yet, but I didn’t want to hold up anyone else, so off we went.
The ride on the ski lift was relaxing…until the dismount. I touched down, stood up, and fell on my face. My group members were all very encouraging, but eventually I shooed them on ahead, insisting that I needed to duke it out alone. It was a bit lonely, but I wanted to focus on my progress instead of how long I was making people wait for me. Besides, I was beginning to get frustrated, and I didn’t want those kind church people to see me turn into a fuming mess. Actually, I was quite proud because I could feel myself starting to take myself too seriously (and when that happens the fun goes out the window) and I was able to stop that in its tracks. So I kept falling down and getting up, falling down and getting up, making my way down the mountain. After one fall I think I was grinning - for whatever dumb reason - and a man skied past and commented, “You look like you’re having a good time.”
There came a moment about midway down the mountain (come to think of it…I had quite a few ‘moments’ that seemed to take place ‘midway down the mountain’) where I had to face the reality that one cannot deal with a snowboard the way one does a person, or a horse. One cannot talk to or reason with a snowboard. I know because I tried. Skiers skied past with raised eyebrows as I talked down at my feet: “No, you don’t understand. I don’t want to go toward the trees…or the ditch, for that matter. I just want to stay in the middle of the slope, don’t you get it? Who’s in charge here, you or me? Stop skidding for a minute and listen to me, there’s a speed issue we need to discuss while we’re at it.”
Well I managed to reach the ski lodge without talking, crying, taking out – or getting taken out by – little kids, or breaking anything. Fifteen people had the same reaction to me going on this trip: “Don’t break anything”.
After resting up and eating chili with the group, I actually went back up a different big hill that was supposedly ‘flat’ and ‘easy’.
But people lie.
The hill was bumpy, fast, steep, and ridiculously long. Night came, they turned the floodlights on, and I was still on that accursed mountain. Thank goodness for cell phones. My group had left me (upon my insistence), but they called me often to make sure I was still alive. It was on that hill that I figured out that whilst standing up from a fall, I could sort of twist my body and drag my right hand on the ground until I was up and sliding, so that I could keep my balance and steer until I got going. It was brilliant. Unfortunately I never figured out how to turn. I was afraid to try to shift my weight too much from heel to toe, so I ended up in another one of my rhythms: fly straight down the hill until panic set in, lie down, skid to a halt, stand up, and begin again. It ended up sounding like this:
“Okay, you’re okay. Easy…eeeeeasy…EASY! Ohcrap.” (fwooooooooooosh).
My lowest point came when I was midway down the mountain.
Fancy that.
The rhythm got messed up and I took a particularly hard fall on my rear that left me gasping for air. I lament that my hindquarters are not more generously padded. Anyway, I was overcome with a sense of despair. I was cold, tired, pained, snot-nosed, and alone. I wanted to be back in my warm apartment sipping hot chocolate and watching a DVD.
But this way of thinking would not do. I took my whininess by the scruff of the neck and shook it deftly. I was on an adventure gosh darn it. I had started it and by golly I was going to finish it. I may have fallen, but I would get up again, if only to fall again. I would make it to the bottom of that mountain in one piece, or how ever many pieces it would take to get the job done.
Preferably one.
I have to admit I did walk part way down that hill. A friendly ski-lift worker guy was on his way down and offered to escort me. I must have looked like the winter sport version of a drowned rat. I don’t know what that would be. A scruffy jackrabbit? I don’t know. Anyway, we walked and talked for a bit. He informed me that all of the emergency ski guys at Bristol Mountain
…Scruffy jackrabbit walking down the edge of the hill with my board under my arm that I was.
I strapped my board back on my feet as I got toward the bottom of the hill, and I actually made a very cool entrance, stopping when I wanted to. Too bad none of my group saw my new and improved skillful self.
As I write to you, bruised and grinning, I would just like to share this final thought: When you fall, get back up. Yes, I know it sounds easy, but try to embrace this thought when you are midway down the mountain, alone, holding your backside and fighting back tears. When you fall, get back up. I don’t think we have enough opportunities to do that, or when we do, we don’t appreciate the fact that we have been given the chance.
Happy Trails.
‘Till Spring,
MegJ
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