During the ACC playoffs, the sign-out sheet for students wishing to depart school early to watch the games grew to such ridiculous lengths that the faculty at C.E. Jordan High began to see their options as either letting 83% of the student body leave school shortly after lunch, or to roll televisions on giant stands into the classrooms and let us watch the games in our afternoon classes. Which do you think they chose?
Here is sunny southwest Colorado, we, too, experience March Madness, but ours revolves around skiing. During this glorious month of lengthening days, goggle tans, excitement over imminent tropical vacations, desert excursions, and for many, little or no work and the promise of a summer hallmarked by festivals, biking, rafting and hiking, the snowpack does an amazing thing: it settles down. As the humans get sun-baked, so does the snow, and we see end of season coverage coupled with a noticeable decrease in avalanche danger. What does that mean? It means everyone is out there skiing peaks, couloirs and bowls, with the strength you have gained from the past 3 months of skiing, and the confidence that the snow will hold steady.
Now, I have resisted writing too much about my learning curve with skiing because the trials and tribulations of learning a sport in a place where EVERYONE is a good skier can feel tedious. I mean, does anyone really want to hear about how demoralizing it can feel one day, and how successful it can feel the next? The truth of the matter is, for me, learning to ski as an adult and having the kind of skiing goals that I have, makes the experience a roller coaster of emotions.
Well, what are my skiing goals, you may ask? My goal is to be a great skier. I don't just want to be a good skier, or someone "who can get down anything", I want to be strong and graceful and confident and proficient and a safe, reliable partner in the back country. In order for me to achieve that, I have to ski a LOT, in all conditions, on all terrain. And to my disappointment, I have discovered that I currently exhibit two unfortunate personality traits that I feel are inhibiting my skiing goals: one is that I am very inconsistent. I can hike and ski super strong one day and the very next day fully, fully flail. The second trait I have is that when the going gets tough, I get hesitant. Sometimes even paralytic, and I am not exaggerating here. I literally find myself looking down a slope and my mind goes totally blank while my body decides it is no longer capable of making a turn. Really? Yes, really. It is super duper lame.
So anyway, as March is in full swing, everyone is out on these incredible group expeditions, posting incredible photos on Facebook of lines and tracks and sun and fun, and I am looking at them thinking, I'm just not ready. I'm not ready to be the slowest person in the group, I'm not ready to be the one that needs to be talked down a tricky section, I'm not ready to deal with the pressure of hanging with a group of truly good, and some great, skiers. Here is a photo of Nevada Gulch that I skied with Johnny a few weeks ago:
So March Madness is happening all around me, which is truly an exciting time for back country skiing enthusiasts. It took me some time when I moved back here to really understand the sense of urgency during this time, and also to realize that my husband is not going to work very much for these few weeks. And that's okay. There have been times when it hasn't felt okay and the Madness part had a very different meaning to me, but overall, I get it. And I will get it more and more each spring.
(Guess whose tracks are whose? Mine are the sloppy nervous ones on the left and Johnny's are the smooth confident ones on the right.)
March Madness is a glorious thing, and I expect that next year at this time, I will be posting a very different blog entry, with smooth, confident tracks, and photos of me with other humans besides my husband that I am comfortable skiing with. But for now, all I can do is keep on skinning up and skiing down, loving the sun and the snow and the promise of more.
If anyone is curious about my Pulitzer Prize book quest, I have finished The Bridge of San Luis Rey, an incredible Steinbeck-like read, am in the middle of Empire Falls, which is kind of like if Bill Bryson wrote fiction, and I also read This Life is in Your Hands, which is beautiful and poignant and captivating.
We had a fun time with the kids this past weekend, Anthony got 3rd place in his big mountain competition and Marcella skied her first Mammoth and Little Rose, aptly named because her middle name is Rose, and we often call her Little Rose:
We also went to the annual Easter Egg dying party at Kathy Green's house, Johnny's boss of 20 something years. She sets up two stations, one for batik dying eggs and the other for tie-dying eggs. Here is our clutch:
It's such a nice tradition with a few other parents and kids, snacks and wine, but more importantly, another memory in a series of memories for the kids to always have. Easter at our household involves creating little ovoid works of art.
We have two more weeks of the ski area being open, and I seem to have recovered from a late winter fizzle. I waned recently, but am now feeling ready to end the season with a bang, and go out strong. There is absolutely not telling what April and May hold - it could snow for 2 more straight months, which we truly need, or I could start posting photos of us tanning it up in the desert before too long.
It's also my annual I Can't Stop Thinking About Hawai'i time, as evidenced by my headphones being turned to my Hawai'i language lessons while I ride the gondola.
March Madness! It's everywhere you want to be :)
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