crash and return

We had a fantastic ski trip! The snow was better than I've ever seen it out here in the ski armpit of the US. (I love where I live. BUt I'm a realist). It was real snow, believe it or not, and it was just perfect - not icy at all on the main part of the slopes. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home so wasn't able to snap any breathtaking photos of my family to share.

This time, I did venture onto the only black-diamond slope of this very small resort. (This was after much encouragement from my small children, who ventured into the world of black diamonds long before me). I was feeling good. With the good snow, I was doing the swish, swish, zip past the beginners, ski poles jauntily behind me, wind ripping through the few hairs escaping from my helmet thing. I was confident. I did the black diamond slope like a pro and I swear I saw skiers on the ski lift (which runs just above) nodding their heads in approval. By golly. I had arrived on the scene as not just a sometimes ski-trip-taker anymore, but I was a SKIER. I had the helmet, I had the goggles, I had the moves (swish swish) and I had the attitude.

So, riding on this crest of confidence and well-being, I urged my kids "Hey guys - Let's do Hangover AGAIN!!!" (Hangover is the name of the black-diamond slope). They shrugged. "OK mom. Whatever. Let's go."

So confident, sassy me arrived at the top of the "mountain" (it's in quotes for a reason, my Colorado friend Mare) and paused at the top of the slope to let my two tiny children dash down ahead of me. See, I'm the older, wiser, more adept one, so I needed to go last to clean up any problems, right? I took off with my newfound "swish swish" style, wind whipping over my goggles and I promptly fell. I shrugged it off while attempting to retrieve my poles and even remembered to thank the tiny 5 year old who skied over to help me. I looked at her mom. "I haven't figured out a graceful way to get up" I joked, hoping to portray that this fall was just....was just a silly little mistake.
"There's not one." she told me, then swished off with her daughter behind her.

So I skied on over to the top of Hangover, remembrances of my recent stellar performance replaying over and over in my head. "HELLO WORLD!" I wanted to shout. "I AM HERE. I - A SKIER - AM HERE." I noticed far ahead in the distance the shapes of my two tiny children, who had long ago zipped down the slope and were zig-zagging in and out of the lesser skiers and snowboarders on their way to the ski lift to wait for their mom (THE SKIER) to join them for the next trip up.

I took off down the slope. About two seconds into it, the memory of my recent fall popped into my head. "BAH!" I mentally shouted. "You have no place here! I will surely NOT fall." (at this point, I have picked up a tremondous amount of speed). "Will I?"

I am sure it will come as no surprise what happens next. (I'm enjoying making this into a saga, aren't I?)

Yes, I "fell". I'm not sure what did it. It may have been a small mound of snow that threw me off, or maybe it was the memory of my recent fall. Whatever. I fell. Largely. Spectacularly. I wobbled, leaned forward, spun on one leg and flipped backward to land on the back of my head. I believe there was a flip or two involved at that point. I remember seeing snow (lots of snow). I don't remember any pain. I remember a spinning world and then I remember hitting ice at the very ditch-edge of the slope and sliding rapidly toward the fence at the bottom (I'm talking maby 150 feet here?). And I kept going. And going. Until I did actually slam into the fence. Finally, I remember sitting up and looking up to the ski lift, where normally, there would be whoops of laughter and fists in the air and "Ooooh good one!!!" shouts. There was silence. I moved around enough to let people know not to call the ski rescue patrol. I stared at my foot and realized my ski was gone. I looked back up the slope (WAY up the slope) and saw my poles lying abandoned in a pile of very disturbed snow. It took a while to locate the missing ski, which was about 100 feet up the slope. Tangled in the fence.

The next 10 minutes or so consisted of me army-crawling across ice, clomping up a very steep snow hill to retrieve poles, using physics to calculate the correct trajectory to throw my body down over the ice to intersect the missing ski, grasping at it and ultimately flailing down under the fence and back again, and army crawling (again) back to a place where I could try to pull my skis back together and my dignity back together. I went to another place, mentally, to just get my stuff together, to find my DH and tell him that I was heading back to the condo in case I threw up from a concussion.

Then I did go back to the condo to lick my wounds. I called poor dad and probably freaked him and mom out simply because I needed to hear a comforting voice, I drank a Diet Dr. Pepper, then went back out because I knew I needed to try again.

It took me a half-day to get back to normal. Talk about a mental game. I fell on every slope I tried that afternoon. Every time I'd get just a little bit of speed behind me, my evil mind would start chanting "fall, fall, fall".

I woke up the next morning, and it was all gone and I was back to normal. I'm sure there's a life-lesson in here somewhere. But for now, I'm going with this. I have skied down a black-diamond slope. I am a skier. I had fun. Life is good. The vision of distant snow moving in, when viewed from the top of a mountain (even when "mountain" is best put in quotes) is spectacular. Cold air breathed in while you are speeding down a slope feels like heaven. My kids will always be better skiers/snowboarders than I am and I'm best to just admit that and quit trying to show off to them. Helmets are good. And I didn't break a leg.