Skiing Into Summer

“Nice turns!” my ski-instructor brother called out as I zig-zagged down the mountain. I heard his encouraging words—right before I sailed off the snowy trail into the dirt.

As an opportunity for sibling bonding, I decided it’d be fun to get skiing lessons from my certified-ski-instructor brother. He taught me that first, I simply had to learn how to walk around in the boots. The next step was to shuffle around in a boot & a ski, then 2 skis, … & my simple instructions continued. I gingerly moved on to the bunny slope experimenting with my new lessons, and then… eventually, up the ski lift I went.

Zig-zagging helped me slow down enough to stay in control. Like a mantra, I used a piece of advice I’d picked up while kayaking last summer (see Paddling Into the New Year): "Look where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go". I confidently followed that advice… until the snowy trail narrowed.

It was the end of the season, and the snow had melted along the edges, reducing the width of the trail. With less space to zig and to zag, my speed picked up. I panicked. And where do you think I looked?

While lying in the mud, a phrase from my parochial school days came to mind: Nunc coepi—Latin for “Now I begin.”

After making sure I was still in one piece, I brushed myself off. Nunc coepi, I thought, and made my way down to the base of the mountain.

Each time I fall, I can begin again. Every time a trail narrows, I go too fast, panic, and crash—I can begin again. Life is like that. Sometimes I move too fast, lose focus on my health and priorities. The path tightens. I get scared and start looking exactly where I don’t want to go. But every time I fly off course, when I remember what I forgot, I can brush myself off and begin again.

Now I begin.

Happy Season of New Beginnings!