Skiing

There used to be a picture of me, just a toddler and dressed in a little tiny snow suit with cute little skis on, and being dwarfed by the form of my father's legs and skis as he straddled me to keep me upright. He used to love to say that he taught me to ski before teaching me to walk. It gives some idea of the quality of mystique that Dad generated around skiing.

I can't remember an age before skiing. It is one of Dad's Three Pillars of Playing, the others being driving and reading, which I'll discuss in other reminiscences. Skiing was in my life the way I imagine that religion is in other people's lives - assumed, unquestionable, utterly true, and intensely spiritual. Also a little scary, populated with an abundance of crazies, and kind of expensive.

I remember ski lessons. I must have been about six years old. There were a gaggle of us, aged six to twelve, and the hardest thing we had to master was making it all the way up the rope tow. In fairness, that is legitimately kind of tricky. Dad was waiting for me when I was done an hour-or-so later, and was immediately interested in having us practice some more. Then we paused for a snack an hot chocolate in the lodge, and went back out for some more wobbly runs until I was getting too tired and cold.

That pattern was repeated about 400 times. That's assuming skiing 8 times a month for the full 5 months of ski season in BC for a decade, which is about right. Get there early, ski until "lunch time", food and hot chocolate in the lodge, back out until we couldn't ski any more. My sister was with us for the vast majority of that, and my mom came along about half the time.

There was also a cadence to the descent down the runs. We'd take turns picking which run to do, and shuffle along the lines feeding the chairlift to endure the chilly bouncing flight up the mountain. After regrouping at the top (if there was more than one chairful of us), I (and sometimes sister and/or mom) would start slaloming down. Dad would wait. Then, when we were getting close to being difficult to track, he'd swoop. A blur of perfect posture would scythe past leaving closely-parallel ski tracks. Away he would fly with unhurried ease, and glide to a perch of mogul to keep watching us.

It's not that I'd be going slowly, necessarily. It's just that during those years he could always go faster: heavier, better skis, more skill. In the black diamond mogals, it was more of matter of not sending my gear skittering across the slope. So he wouldn't go too far downhill in case he needed to trudge back up to help me gather my kit and my wits. But even on the fast sweeping runs when I could stay in my lowest tuck and throw caution completely to the wind - he would still be able to reel me in and glide past. Grinning. And I'd grin back. Because it's like flying. It really is. And the only thing better than flying is to be flying at the edge of your ability and in formation with your enthusiastic ski-bum dad.

Dad also had me entered into ski racing. I hated it, like I hate almost everything that involves having to interact with other humans personally. Also: because I wasn't very fast compared to some of the other kids. Now that I know some more physics, I realize that my gangly height and extremely light weight were major factors in that. It didn't stop me from trying too hard, though, and fracturing more than just some bones in the process. Aside: those ski-patrol medical toboggans aren't as much fun to ride in as you might think. He could probably see how much I hated it. And I, in turn, could see how much he wanted for me to enjoy a sense of belonging with something, the way that he was able to with so many things. So we kept at it for years, because he wouldn't give up on me.

We stopped skiing as a family about when I was 16. Dad was the part-owner of a little ski shop for a while, and his ties with it had given us discounts on equipment and local lift passes. But that had evaporated, and along with some drama at work and at home, it served to make it unfeasible to continue the tradition. We still went skiing, but only occasionally. My sister and I were very much caught up in our own oh-so-histrionic lives by then. And a couple years after that, we were both gone from home.

Freed from the burden of teenagers, my parents resumed skiing regularly. The sparse contact that I maintain with loved ones (I keep no contact whatsoever with anyone else) was regularly centered on the skiing that they had done or were planning to do.

Years passed. Dad developed systematic rheumatoid arthritis such that it afflicted every joint in his body. Merely walking became difficult because of the stiffness and pain. But he kept skiing.

When I was finally able to afford skiing again myself, I went semi-regularly to ski with dad. Increased mass meant that I could finally keep up with him. Just. His zen-like skill still permeated his every fibre such that he could ghost down the slope as an apparition of pure grace.

After he died, I got his last ski jacket. In a clever compartment in the sleeve is his last season's pass, from the winter before he died. On it is a picture of him. Smiling.