My
First Ski Instructor
Junior High was a sun-down enterprise for me. A life haul
with no U-turns. The scapes of loneliness haunted me on a regular basis. My
father is a good man. My mother is a wonderful woman. In moments when the world
and high schools that I stayed at were built to fuel self-destruction, they
always knew when I needed a break. My mom took me to Europe to remind me there
is more in the world then abusive high school brats.
My dad took me skiing. One year we went to big bear. He
assigned me a group with a group ski instructor. He was a portly man who seemed
to enjoy crowded admiration ski divers. He loved taking it slow, managing the
pace of everyone involved. My case seemed absurdly hopeless. I couldn’t even
manage the V shape very well trying to go down the hill. I slowed everyone
down, and eventually, he told me he didn’t have time for me. He had to look
after the other skiers and didn’t have time to manage the “slow pokes.” I couldn’t
blame him really. It was the story of my life. I just couldn’t function the way
people wanted me too. Group classes always made me feel inadequate. And my emotional
development continued to decline in certain areas throughout my teenage years.
Except there were moments like this that led me to understand how expansive the
world really is. That my worth was not limited by what some stranger thought
about me, or my potential.
I’m getting ahead of myself, however. A young woman saw what
they did to me. She is a personal trainer at Big Bear. Or at least she was,
when I went there about 20 years ago. This brings me to another point. There’s
a reason why I trust and like women more than men, and it isn’t so attached to
my obvious regard for Nirvana or Kurt Cobain. Fact is, women have been looking
out for me since I was a little boy. And never in any creepy way. I was noticed
more and nurtured by women. I tended to make more friends with women as a
child. I even fell in love when I was nine years old. That was a scary
experience. And I don’t mean like puppy love, ah how adorable nonsense. I mean
the adult brutal emotional feeling that comes and demands you change. As a
friend of mine once said, being possessed by a demon kind of feeling. In any
case, my history has a long list of women who seemed to notice me, and
appreciate my worth and remind me that I wasn’t invisible.
She found me feeling the usual pain I had come to know as
normal. Skiing away with the blanket icy feeling that stretched beyond whatever
slope I was on. To put it poetically, I was reminded that life was like riding
down a black diamond sky-lift pretending to be a bunny slope. I knew that one
day I was going to lower my head and brace for the sharp incline of icy winds,
blistered eyes with no tomorrow. That day though was just a sad boy hoping for
death. It was a long period of conditioning for feeling invisible. Invisibility
is something I’ve always been accustomed too. Anyone around me might find me
amusing, magnetic, or everything they ever dreamed of, but that infatuation always
seems to fade. Anything that takes me from the expense of here and now that
offers transport into some greater mindscape of invisibility. Away from hurt,
pain, or judgement of ignorant people seems to be the logical step in every
situation. I want a female to share it with though. An invisible adventure of
beauty and romance beyond the obvious decay of defeated lives.
I don’t know what motivated her to take notice of me. A sad
child limping away from a sky instructor doesn’t seem to unusual. Even amongst the
most idealistic nurturing women, it seems logical that there would be a line
where the only natural choice for anyone would be to let sadness just be. She
took it upon herself to train me though that day. No lessons were necessary. It
was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had as a child. Not only
was I able to do that V shit, but I was zig-zagging down the mountain like a
pro. Narrowing the distance between my skis down to the football length, and
all kinds of techniques that made me feel I was born skiing.
While we were going down, she suggested with some passion
that it would be fun to go down and show off my skill to the group ski
instructor man and show him how much more advanced I was with her help. I can’t
remember exactly what she said, but to my heart it went like this:
“Hey! Look who you discarded! Look who you said was too slow
to ski!”
That’s always been my experience with women. I never
understood how anyone could view a woman any differently. My experience hasn’t
changed since I got older. It seems every woman I meet is like that ski
instructor. A woman who reminds the little boy in me that I’m still worth
something, even when the world tries to tell me that I should just crawl into a
corner and die.
