Another perfect ski day! The kids are getting so good, it's crazy. I almost burst with pride when I watch them. Since I had to save some legs to teach Zumba this evening, and Ira and Av were beat, we called it quits an hour early, but Eli and Grandpa kept going 'til closing time.
It's funny...once upon a time, I lived and breathed skiing, or snowboarding, technically. (I found out recently that I was one of Killington's first female snowboard instructors, which I actually didn't realize at the time...it never occurred to me that there weren't any other women around, despite my daily battle not to get stuck with the toddler lessons that tended to be dumped on me, as the only girl.) I spent several years in early adulthood as a ski bum before real life took over and I kinda forgot about it, but when the Winter Olympics come around, I feel a bit like how I've heard ex-smokers describe their cravings years after they've quit...and I get a full-body longing to have goggle-tan and ice-crusted braids peeping out under my hat from bombing through the snow guns to get first tracks. When I watch the games on television, my toes are curled to the point of cramping and I am sucked in again. This time around, Eli was sitting next to me with his little knuckles white, watching as some of our friends from New England made us proud, and I know he's got that toe-curling craving too. ...I tell you what, all those dreaded toddler lessons I taught sure came in handy with my own kiddies...now when they ski, I already see in them the ability to be so much better than I ever was, I cried a little as Eli came down the hill to where I was waiting, because he was surreally beautiful. And happy. You can see happiness coming off him from a long way off, it's how I pick him out at a distance on a crowded slope. Something about being born and bred in a place that's half the year under snow, you find a way to love it. And it'll love you back.
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