As I lie waiting for my mother to arrive, cursing delayed flights and blasted train connections, I figured I'd jot down some thoughts. It is the eve of my birthday, so I might even try to throw in some graphic birth puns and metaphors.
Last I left you, I was about to embark on my first skiing adventure in the beautiful area around well-known Saalbach-Hinterglemm. James ended up coming along as one of the four teachers accompanying a group of...about 50 students? My first day of skiing was a blast. I went with James' group, which was composed of the "less" advanced skiers. They all looked like pros to me. First, James dropped me off at the "baby lift" to practice a few exercises. By the time he came back I wasn't crashing at all, but of course as soon as he was watching I couldn't get 15 feet without a catastrophe.
I joined up with the main group, and about half of the students decided to be gracious to me and go down an easy blue slope with me. As we meandered down the simple slope, I tried to imitate the student in front of me. I was mostly using the "pizza slice," as kids are taught to call it (putting my skis into a v-shape to slow down), but he was cutting back and forth with his skis parallel. Eager to improve, I brought one ski next to the other, and before I could change my fate I was headed off what looked to be a cliff. For half of a second I thought, "Am I really going to die, because I didn't do the pizza slice?" and then soft snow caught me five feet below. The students called, "DAN?!!" I waved in the precious victory, feeling born again, as I fought my way out of my snow placenta, stabbing it with my ski poles to get balance and shoot out into the new world (terrible metaphor, but I made a promise, and then I ran wild with it. Makes you think though: good for mothers babies don't have ski poles in the womb. Bet you babies want some, though).
After a couple hours of good, hard work, James and I decided it was time to go to a Hütte (can you guess what it means?) for lunch and a drink. It was a stunning, sunny day, so James and I admired the scenery while soaking in the sweet golden rays of sun and mug alike. After rejuvenating for about a hour, we hit the slopes again. By the end of the first day, I was skiing the red slopes with the others. Controlling my speed was a trick for me. On a particularly steep stretch, I was trying to slow down when all of a sudden some punk came from the left and cut me off. I had neither the time nor skill to prevent it, so I flattened him and bit it in all of one blink. Escaping from the tangle between his legs, birds tweeting, I asked, "Bist du okay?" With a funky accent (maybe he was Dutch?) he panted, "Yeah. I'm okay. Are you okay?" Still confused, I continued in German. "Ja. Alles klar. Kein Problem." We were both okay, and that was the last and closest experience I had to injury or death on the trip.
I improved quickly and steadily throughout the week. Every day, I would stand up aching at every movement and physical contact with the world outside of my body. The days that I skied with James and his group, we managed a perfect balance of skiing and resting. Most days were sunny, and we sat at our "Basislager" (base camp. The kids loved James referring to the huts this way, and eventually adopted the term, as well. It didn't matter that all of the huts were the exact same: expensive and wet), and we drank a couple of beers and then skied on. At the end of every day, aching yet more, James and I found our way into a private sauna for the teachers and chatted for a good hour before dinner. By the last day, I was able to ski with the fastest students in our group, and James said I was one of the "greatest successes" he'd ever had.
It was an amazing week. I was treated like a king as a "teacher". For the first time in years, someone cooked and brought me food. I had my own room, bathroom, and TV. I attained cult-status when I played a part in the newest fad of my generation by dancing for the students in their "Harlem Shake" video. Of course, it wasn't all unicorns and sunshine. The kids managed to complain every chance they got, which it turns out is an infectious and deadly disease. The teachers would come into our little teachers' room and complain about the kids complaining. Classic. To which I would scream, "DID YOUR MOTHER COMPLAIN WHEN SHE HEAVED YOU INTO THIS WORLD?!!" No. I'm just playin'. I didn't. I ignored them, laughed at them, or made fun of them (more with the students). I even managed to call a whole table of students complaining about the food at dinner a bunch of spoiled brats, and they still liked me afterward.
Last week we had föhn, again (remember? I taught you what this word means). We had one day that was almost 70 degrees, and many others straddled between 50 and 60. Every day became an existential crises as I tried to decide if I should leave my balcony to hike a mountain or just sit there all day. On one of the last, warmer days, James and I went up the Katrin again. The weather wasn't so welcoming. Most of the snow had melted, which wasn't ideal for James' skis or my snow shoes, and the drizzle of rain wetting our heads didn't make for an upbeat spirit. "Every day a new challenge. Up a mountain in the sun one day, up a mountain in the rain the next," James breathed. On the finishing stretch of the slope to the hut, I felt myself struggling with dregs of energy. Teetering on unconsciousness, I almost hugged the hut. When James got there, he said it had been as much of a struggle for him. As a knee jerk reaction, after joining acquaintances (might as well be friends in that hut), I ordered a beer. The whole day my body had been feeling odd. My stomach had been complaining as much as a group of 15 year old girls on a ski trip. But I swear to you, and I normally don't proclaim these things publicly, that first gulp of beer CURED me. I'm not talking about intoxication or even a light affectation. I'm talking about one gulp that turned my day around. But really, 9 months without such a healing gulp? I feel so sorry for mothers. I'm pretty sure their stomach complains a lot.
On my way home, I walked past many Ischlers on a trail. Out of about five groups I passed, three stopped to talk to me. Sure, I was carrying my snow shoes, which always attract attention, but they were all so friendly. Each started with a generic observation or question about where I'd been, but each conversation ended more personally, more connected.
I swear. This love affair with the mountains won't stop. Every day I measure their shape and judge their hue. Some days they wear a rustic, rusty orange brown, worn from the weather of countless lifetimes. On others, they are an innocent blue, almost as fresh as the sky. Often they're white, and it seems that the fog must come from their breath. Just now they're finally shedding the winter coat. Many of them are now bare, and only the greatest of them still hug tight to their frozen armor. Paths are now surrounded by the first spring flowers, oooing a newborn's surprise at this wide, bright world. When my friend Florence came to visit for an afternoon the other day, I remarked with gloom, "Too bad they're going to get murdered by the cold next week." "Actually," she reassured me with a biologists wisdom, "these first spring flowers have a kind of natural anti-freeze, so they'll be alright." Who knew?! How cool.
Well, here's to being born. Here's to the mother that carried me and those that carried us. More so, here's to being born into the world, this beautiful world. Forgive me the sentimentality, but how great that we are born in to something! So many people, so many mountains, and so many places to be a part of. Crazy that our mothers bear us into a world with Dutch idiots cutting us off, complainers trying to kill the vibe, and those early spring fake-outs before the soul deafening cold snaps. I guess it's only fitting that mothers go through a world of pain before bringing us into one filled with it. Too bad we don't have any of that anti-freeze juice, but I guess that's why our parents tell us to put on our coats. Thanks parents!
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