Snowfall in solitude.
The silence is deafening. I can hear my heart beat. I can hear little drifts of snow falling from the trees. The wind. No other sounds. Just my thoughts pounding the front of my skull and moving their way out of my mouth for none but me to hear. These woods know my name. This mountain is like family, familiar and comforting. Frustrating and cold. The snow continues to pile up against the aspen trees falling from the sky in perfect works of one of a kind art. I rest and relish the solitude and the perpetual motion of nature. It is always changing and moving forward. Every new season is as unique as these snowflakes peppering my hooded head. It may seem exactly as the winter was last year, but it is not. It is it's own moment in time, never to be again. The leaves fall to the ground in the Autumn, just like every year, but if you look closely it is never the same.
We are the seasons. Ever changing and new in the moment. A second that will never return.
Which way do i go? Do I traverse the ridge line just below, moving laterally like a heavy arrow through the trees, the whistling in my ears and burning my face. Or do I head straight down at a staggering and scary speed and take to the sky for a moment, pushing through the air like water through a canyon?
I go straight and fly off the edge, my heart pounds as I leave the ground. Everything goes quiet. My arms roll down imaginary car windows to keep balance. Once, twice, three times. Impact! the snow is deep and soft and in a snap i am underneath it as it slides down upon me like an ocean wave crashing over me washing all other thoughts away. Survival is the one the one that remains. The baser instinct, the driving force behind our species limited success.
A drift had come loose as I left the ground and it followed me to the ground bellow and buried me alive.
Panic! Digging.
Am i digging up or down?
Spit.
Down. Dig the other way. Can't breathe. Reaching for the sky i see the light pierce through my snowy tomb. It blinds me as a sigh in relief.
This is going to take a while.
Relax.
Breathe.
Back on top of the snow, I continue down the steep tree lined snow field a little more cautiously than before.
My edges seem sharper. The air smells crisper.
It takes the fear of death to really appreciate life.
I love doing this because it is terrifying. It is also controllable.
Any moment I could slam into a tree, fall off a cliff, or be buried under an avalanche. You can die in the blink of an eye.
The control is the thrill. Making sharp skillful jump turns, narrowly avoiding trees slapping low lying dead branches away from your head. you choose a line. Anywhere between three and twenty of your next turns are carefully planned and linked together. In your mind you have made the turn and are on to the next before you arrive at the first. The skill and perfect execution is the reward. No two lines are ever the same.
My legs throb, quads feel like heavy stones, but I am already thinking of my next line.
I like to ride alone. i go where I want, when i want. I don't have someone else to wait on or worry about. Only i know my days story.
A smile pushes my lips as a dart out of the woods and forty feet down onto a main trail where I sail around skiers as if they weren't even moving.
Another boarder comes out of the woods grabbing his tail as he drops the fifteen foot rock.
I yell an unintelligible roll tongued cheer as he crisscrosses my turns.
We fist bump as our turn meets up and blaze to the bottom of the lift.
The lifty looks at us covered in snow like powdered dough nuts, smiles on our wind burned faces.
"Must be pretty terrible up there today. You guys look like you re having no fun at all," he says as he swings the chair towards us.
"It's the worst, " I reply with a laugh and another fist bump.
"Let's hit some trees," my new friend smiles to me.
"If you can keep up."
I should probably head back, but there's always one more run and he could keep up. We headed back up the lift together.
"One more?" he asks.
"There's always one more," I reply, "but my one more is tomorrow.I still got to get back to the gondola before the lifts close.
The ride back to the gondola takes about 30 minutes. One lift to the top, a long flat traverse from Strawberry Park to Bachelors gulch, a run down Bachelors gulch, then a trail down around the hotel over bridges and roads. More solitude as it gets darker and colder.
Exhausted legs won't keep me from another powder day tomorrow much like this one. Life is pretty good.
Even when one day seems like the last,
Life is good.
Have not found the muse lately to continue our space oddessy. Will get back to it soon.
What are the other guys thoughts on the kung-fu communication from my last entry?
Where does the actual fighting happen? are the separate clans on different cycles or do they share the bell to the next destination?
Im out of town until Monday. Let's have another pow wow some time next week.
2 comments:
I really liked your kung fu descriptions from the recent entry. I think your forwarded the idea immensely. Still feel like I want visceral, concrete injury code. I'll have to depend on your elegant, patient vision of the martial art, to keep me from being stuck on the taste of blood in the mouth. We do need to have another powwow. Maybe draw some sketches of the Bell transfers. Thanks for getting my head back to logistics. See most my most recent entry "Plotto". Trying to nail down the story writing, human emotion arch type end. We're getting there. We figure out a couple more things, and we can start outlining.
Well done sir.
Thanks/ Think it moved forward a bit. I think there is blood and visceral to come. I want to foreshadow it as if it's a great honor, matter of fact, and not at all terrifying to them to further the idea of a culture that uses violence to communicate in such high forms.
Post a Comment