Downhill Skiing…again

Apparently, I am a downhill skier again. It’s been seven years and two new knees since I stepped into boots and clamped into skis and zoomed down a mountainside. I love being on the snow and making turns again, carving into what has just fallen. Here there’s no sound of ice scratching, just the shoosh of snow and that chair lift rumble of metal and cable and the bar you pull down. I’d forgotten about walking in ski boots and wearing a helmet and goggles. But all of it feels familiar and fun. Today is the first day of spring, and it’s full of snow and skiing. The sky is blue, the sun is out on a mountain of snow and my feet are locked in ski boots on skis. How my quads burn, new muscles forming or maybe they are remembered muscles of years ago when I had a body that moved down mountains with ease. Something new is ribboning through me, some kind of opening to what I can do that I thought I couldn’t. First the backpacking and trekking in Patagonia and now downhill skiing again. Something forgotten seems remembered and sheds years from me. Skiing down a steepness means I’m watching the snow, seeing each indentation and moving my body and the attached skis. I become a wave, a shallow shovel, scribbling new arcs in the whiteness. Skiing is another way of being right here. How grateful I am.