I wasn't looking forward to this trip. Going on a trip means getting Kurt to watch the horses, my brother to fly 3000 miles to watch my mom, and then having to get off the couch. I am barely doing my regular life and the kids keep wanting to add more FUN. WTF.
We rented a Steve, a big huge van like the one we took cross country, and we all piled in with snow gear. This was the point of the trip, to get Bess a chance to snowboard, trying it out, and Emma a chance to ski for the first time.
The place was huge, we had to have a huge one to fit all the cousins. The rooms downstairs were like little cells, like an abandoned christian cult leadership house. I took the room with the door to the outside since I had the dogs, and the bed was low like a japanese woman recently redecorated. It was only three nights, how much sleep was I going to get anyway, I never sleep well in new places and I always forget to "borrow" some of mom's sleep aids can we pencil that in for next time. I don't know why I think I need to cowboy out every hard situation without help.
The first day is just getting all the supplies we need to eat for the next three days with 13 people. The grocery store at Big Bear is like there's a hurricane coming and also Macy's is having a firesale. I've never seen so many people. I think going at 5pm is the worst because all the kids just got off the slopes starving and there are only two stores in town and we're at the smaller one. Food and pizza scored, we head back. The crowdedness is confusing, though because after the long winding road up the mountain into this tiny little lakeside mountainy ski resort area, I guess I thought it would be quaint and quiet and empty like it was when I'd come as a kid in the 70s. Instead we wound our way up into a snowy nightclub scene, where everyone seemed mad and hungry.
That night as I lay in bed awake for hours, every time toilet flushed it sounded like the titanic going over niagara falls. Also it was supposed to snow at 6 am, and I knew we'd have to get up because what if that was the only snow and we never get to see snow.
I got to sleep from about 4-6. 6 I was outside because the ground had a thin layer of snow and more snow was falling. It was thin, and could turn into sleet so I got the kids out so they could see in case this was all we would get.
The next three hours we just stayed awake because the snow came down thick and plentiful. This was the best part, like Maryland, the street isn't a street anymore, it's a wide canal of white and everyone can walk anywhere there's no lines. There are no cars. It's just walking and winter, and you can eat everything that's falling from above. The dogs run first time in the snow, and the kids are rolling huge balls the size of their heads. There's frolic. Sliding on sleds, searching for hills. There's a fire inside when we get in.
That night we decide to go get our ski gear that we'll need for the next day on the slopes. This journey to the ski store is better than the actual skiing. There are young mountain people helping in the store, everyone's wearing a sweater, the boots fit, the cousins are excited about tomorrow, there's a search for sunglasses instead of goggles. We can't find sunglasses anywhere. Finally 20 dollar sunglasses which is only slightly cheaper than the 40 dollar goggles.
We pack the car, get our stuff ready for the next morning since we have to leave early. I pack some snacks. I haven't skied since Nathan was 4 and Emma was 3. I wasn't very good at it then. Before that I had skied once when I was 17. It took me all day to get good. I realized I ski every 20 years exactly. 17, 37, 57. I can't wait for 77. I'm going to be ready next time. I'm going to practice.
The morning of skiing, we get worried about icy streets, because we have no chains and Nathan doesn't drive in snow ever. We decided to try and drive up the mountain. We almost get to the top and the truck in front of us starts to slide down toward us. When Nathan is scared he doesn't do anything. He said in a very small voice I don't know what to do. I get out of the car and wave other cars around us and tell Nathan to just back up slowly, we'll back all the way down the mountain if we have to. We park in a lot at the bottom and cram on a shuttle with fifty thousand other people and then pick up MORE people and then we drive up the 3 minutes to the mountain and then there we are. Skis, kids, no water, giant snow hill.
Here's where it gets No Fun for me.
The kids are all good. They strap everything on. The big kids who know how to snowboard take Bess and a cousin to teach them the first time. I take Emma and the other cousin who haven't skied over to the lift. I felt the same way on my skis as I felt at 17 and 37. Jules should not be putting long metal sticks on her feet to move on ice. My body tells me every time. This is not your sport bro.
We get on the lift, though, cause we're still excited. I've done it before, how hard can it be.
We go up up up the mountain. At the very top we realized oh we better get our poles ready and our skis ready we have to get off this lift. We open the bar and as our lift goes over the little ice mound for getting off, we all stand up on skis and immediately splatter down the ice like thrown eggs. They stop the ski lift. They shovel us off to the side so life can continue while we untangle ourselves and figure out how to get up. I look down the mountain and realize there is no way I will be able to do this where Fun will be involved at any level.
Emma and Little Cousin have gotten up and we all try and start off. I say to aim yourself parallel to the mountain and try and go horizontally across which works until you have to turn your skis around to zig zag the other way.
The girls are slow and learning as I am, but I am having a really terrible time and I can't seem to understand why. I like snow. I like challenges. I like the people. But every inch of me does not want the skis to go at any miles per hour on this icywet hazardous downward slope from hell. This other part of me that has taken over has decided that we do not like that I don't control the speed of my skifeet with any control. I am mad that it takes so much energy to stop myself from going and that now the whole point of my donner party trip down the mountain is to move as little as possible and not die. It's like a rigid second by second journey where I just keep stopping myself with poles and using every foot bone muscle and hip joint to keep my body upright and sliding inch by inch safely. I don't care that it isn't fun. I want to understand why it is so hard. Ski schools with 2 years olds pass me by. I try to keep up with them but they are way better than me and I know when I'm beat. I inwardly wave at them with wistful desire to be them. In their tiny fat fueled rosy cheeked skipants bodies. I'm like a boney yet smores fat avalanche (a fatvalanche) waiting to happen with an emergency room at the end.
The kids are already on the ski lift above me as I'm getting almost to the end
MOM! You doing ok? They're yelling from above, on their second round, seagulls circling the scene of my accident; the place where my humor has died and I'm skiing over the grave
I yell NO and don't look up so I don't cry. I can only look every inch ahead and try and get to the very bottom.
I am very angry at myself that I can't do everything with them. I always do everything they do. This is something I don't think I can do.
I get to the bottom and my eyes are full of tears. An older cousin calls me on the phone. Are you ok? Maybe you aren't having a very good time.
I say I'm so disappointed in myself
Oh no she says.
I don't know why I can't do it. I want to be like them. I need to be on the tiny baby slope. I need to be on like a snowy curb, practicing for many many hours til I understand how to move on these sticks.
It's okay not to be good at it, she says.
I don't want to be old
It's just part of growing up, she says
I can move flat on the skis so I go over to the beginner area and say hey I'm not on your list of 1 and a half year olds you have there learning to ski, but can I practice here
I try to smile like Suzy Chapstick.
no they say. They are all 15 year old instructors direct from Austria. They can ski while writing an essay on their laptops and simultaneously stirring soup.
I decide I didn't pay a million dollars to sit at the bottom of the slope with the moms with the dyed hair in fat jackets and maniures who keep yelling Tanner! Makayla!
The flat snow is actually too boring even for me to ski on, so I decide while the kids do their giant slopes, I'll just walk my skis up the bottom of the hill incline to where you get in line for the ski lift, and at the end of that line I'll turn my skis around and try and ski back down that 30 feet.
This is my own Vietnam.
So I do this over and over and over and over and over. I can sort of ski down this area where people are sliding down past me getting off the slope, or passing me on the way up to get in the ski lift line. This is a hill I can control myself sort of and learn how to feel my weight and muscles to stay afloat. Every time I turn around at the "top" and aim myself down to try again, I say an urgent prayer and I hold on to my face with my teeth.
It isn't FUN, really, but it isn't EMBARRASSING.
Plus I see everyone who is coming down from the mountain, and everyone who comes past me is saying to their friends
MANNNN I JUST ATE SHIT
The kids are learning and liking what they're learning. They're hungry and we get out of our skis to get food. I take off my skis and put a boot in the snow and I say joyfully hello foot, regular old foot on the snow. I suddenly know how to use you, you lovely solid motherfucker. We go inside on these impossible boots for walking and get 80 dollar burritos and get back out to the snow. We keep practicing our skills and I don't quit til an hour before quitting time. While they go up one more time I go and get the van in the parking lot and drive back up to get the kids so they don't have to take the packed shuttle. There are raisinettes and soda in the van. The van is my favorite place in the whole wide world for ten minutes.
I didn't do the mountain I thought I would do but I did do the mountain I could do.
We manage to get back without the car sliding off the mountain on icy streets. I'm happy because we did the hard part and maybe I will sleep over an hour that night.
I am happy because the dogs are so happy, and there's snow and that night Bess says can we go again tomorrow and Emma says I wish we could go again I was finally getting it
This was the point, my mom brain says, relieved. Remember?
I learned I don't want to live in a touristy mountain village. I would like to have hilly, treesy, open land, seasons okay if I have a truck with chains, and I would like less people. I would like to take my whole family, though. Having a house with the whole family and their noise is good, if your bed is only slightly higher than Japanese level. Also if the heater can be go on less than roasting level which at night it seemed to be trying to fry us out. But you're afraid to turn it down because we're in the SNOW. We don't want to be COLD.
At least we're finding out what we need for the next ski trip. I'll sign up for the baby slope, or maybe just bring an innertube. Being out in the sun and shiny snow is good, the trees are my friends. The air loves me. The coming home to a lovey housemosphere where some of your smarter non-skiing family made soup and spaghetti and a fire, and the snow can wait outside patiently for your feet. You can be inside with these faces and you can feel good cause there's time for everything and if you listen you can hear the snow waiting.
