My Skiing Memoir

My Skiing Memoir

“Are you ready for this?” my skiing instructor, Jason, asked, a playful smile stretching across his face. “You know I’m gonna win.”
“No way!” I burst out, confident in my ability.
Jason shook his head, preparing to start. “I’ll go first, and you follow.” He pushed off, spinning as he did so. “And don’t forget to count!” Around and around and around he went. It seemed as if there was no end to the amount of times he could twirl his skis on the slope. About half-way down the mountain, he yelled back at me, “Sixteen!”
Sixteen. I can beat that. I thought to myself as I readied for the ‘whirlybirds.’ At least, that’s what we called them. To most of the world they were known as three-sixties, but for some reason we liked to call them by a funky name. ‘Whirlybirds’… who's ever heard of that?
I pushed off, and I willed my skis to turn, turn, turn, until they went downhill once again. One. I did it again. Two. Three. Four. After a while, I fell into a (adjective) rhythm. My skis just kept going around and around and around, my mind was so dizzy I couldn’t focus if I wanted to, and my entire being was focused on the task at hand. I was going to do this.
After spinning for what seemed like an age, my counting finally reached the double digits. Ten, eleven, twelve. The numbers just flowed now, along with my body. I felt as if I was a river, flowing downstream, spinning in circles for eternity. To say the least, feeling that dizzy on skis while continuing to spin in circles is exhilaratingly fun.
Even though I could barely make out what I was seeing, somehow my mind must have still been able to function because I was still counting. There was that feeling of anxiousness when I reached sixteen, and I literally had to will myself not to fall over. I couldn’t tell up from down, left from right, but somehow I kept the numbers straight in my head. Today, I couldn’t even come close to telling you how I did it, just that my faith in the fact that I wouldn’t fall kept me right-side-up.
Then, I did it; I reached seventeen, then eighteen, then nineteen. Twenty! I felt so giddy when I spun around that last time, but then I stopped focusing on spinning around and fell crashing to the ground. But it didn’t matter, because I’d done it! “Yes!” I cried, grinning. “Told you I’d win!”
He slid his jaw a little to the right, clearly annoyed at having lost. But then he smiled playfully and pushed off, causing me to ski as fast as I could after him. We, along with the rest of our group, raced back to the ski lift. Once there, I smiled, overjoyed. For so long a time, ever since Jason had taught me to perform a whirlybird, I had been trying to beat him at his own game. Now, finally, I had.
Apprehension gripped my soul, allowing me to become very excited, yet extremely nervous at the same time. Riding the chairlift was a thrilling experience, and one that I hardly thought about or paid attention to. This was mostly due to the fact that I had been skiing the majority of my life, and I tended to take for granted the little things about the wonderful sport. However, when I was little I loved to gaze out at the frozen landscape below my feet rush along, while at the same time feeling as if I wasn’t moving at all.
When I closed my eyes I could almost believe I was flying. The wind pulled at my hair, whipping across my face, and I felt so alive, so free. But a gentle, friendly shove from a friend whom I had skied with for more than five years, Becca, brought me back to reality. She was a few grades younger than I was, and yet, we had shared some very... shall we say interesting moments together.
One such time was when Becca and I were riding this same chairlift, chatting, when all of a sudden the chair jerked forward. We were shoved against the safety bar, which we had, thankfully, just put down.
Grinning at each other, we playfully swatted each other’s skis and made them swing back and forth like windshield wipers. However, after twenty minutes of playing games with our skis, we became somewhat bored and started to wonder when the chairlift was going to start up again.
I looked at the chair behind me, where Jason was sitting all by himself, and asked, “Has the chairlift ever stopped this long before? They usually last like five minutes at most, right?”
He turned to me and answered, “Unless there are problems with the chairlifts themselves, they usually don’t stop for more than five minutes. I bet they are almost done whatever it is they had to do, and we’ll be off this chairlift shortly.”
An hour passed. “I bet they’ll have to come and get us down with latters!” I exclaimed, completely oblivious to the fact that we were over thirty feet off the ground and putting my overly active imagination to good use.
“Yeah!” Becca agreed, “Do you think they’ll bring firetrucks?” I nodded vigorously, and we both giggled like typical eight-year-olds. Just when we had given up hope to ever be rescued or have the chairlift start moving again, (which was all of five minutes later), we felt the familiar jerk of the chair as the chains above us spurred into action. We all grinned, including Jason, and were soon standing at the summit of the mountain.
By that time, however, our lesson was over, so we had to quickly ski back to the lodge. I remember my mother was furious that we hadn’t gotten a refund for our lesson from the time Becca and I had spent on the chairlift. I just smiled, shrugged, and skipped off to the French fry line, where I met with Becca. It was our tradition, eating French fries after a day filled with skiing, or, in this case, a day filled with sitting on chairlifts. As usual, we also topped off the spectacularly healthy meal with a slushie. It is a tradition we had done for years, and it is a tradition we have done for years since that day.
There was one day of skiing with Becca and Jason, however, when we were having so much fun on the mountain we didn’t want to get off, even at the prospect of a slushie. This was the time after I had been racing Jason down the mountain all week, and winning more and more each time. Getting cocky, I had made a bet with Jason, “If I win, can you pull me back to the lodge from the end of the Logging Trail?”
Sure he was going to win, Jason replied playfully, “Sure, but if I win, you’re pulling me.”
Overly confident that I’d win, I answered, “Great! What trail are we going to race down?”
“What if we take Chipmunk up to Bobcat and race to the colored lift?” Jason suggested. “Everyone else can race each other to the colored lift through Bobcat, or simply take Foxhole and not race at all. Either way, we’ll meet at the colored lift and take the Logging Trail from there.”
The rest of his group agreed and counted us off. Three. Two. One. Go! We took off, and he soon pulled ahead due to the flattened terrain. I knew when I had started that I had given him the advantage, but I wasn’t losing this time. I made powerful side strokes with my skis, using the knowledge I had received earlier that year during cross-country skiing to my advantage. I glided through the turn like a hurricane’s wind, and soon I was far ahead of Jason and building up speed for the upcoming hill. With the sheer amount of momentum I had built up, I sailed easily up the little hill that had so often been my undoing in other races.
However, all my momentum was now gone, and Jason was right on my tail once again. As powerfully and with as much speed as I was able. With Jason gaining an inch on me every second, I kept skiing as fast as I could. Eventually, I made it to the crest of Bobcat, and started to descend toward the lodge, pushing off with my skis every few seconds to get the most out of my speed. Leaning forward and crouching slightly to make the most out of my already aerodynamic skis, I flew down the mountain, probably topping thirty or forty miles-per-hour.
Even at my incredible speed, however, Jason was catching up, little by little. In seconds the end of the trail came into view, and I knew. I could win. Looking out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jason, who was almost neck and neck with me at this point, trying to push me to the side of the trail. It wasn’t going to work. I had come too far to give up now, so I pushed on. My faith in myself paid off, as just when Jason was going to pass me, I finished. I had done it.