Despite my clumsy nature and near non-existent athleticism, I am a skier. My parents are skiers, which is how this happened. They used to ski all the time until they had kids and then a few years later, it seemed that they woke up one morning and said "Oh shit, we never taught the kids to ski!" So I was eleven when we headed up to Bromley in Vermont for our February vacation. This is fortunate, because given my track record in other sports, (and quite literally my track record), the chances that I would have independently thought it would be a good idea to impale myself down a steep incline on plastic boards would have been slim to none. If I had not started at that age, I would certainly not be the competent skier I am today. I am fairly secure on the mountain, skiing black diamond trails with relative elegance for someone who is only able to get away to ski about once a year. At the very least, I believe most of those embarrassing beginner's skiing accidents to be behind me at this age.
I was recently proven wrong on this count.
The boyfriend and I had cleared our schedules over a month in advance to get a ski weekend in with his family last weekend. Never having downhill skied before, Brendan promptly signed up for a lesson. A friend asked why I couldn't just teach him, but fortunately, B realized that that probably wouldn't have been good for our relationship. Besides, when I am lucky to get one ski trip in a year, I don't want to spend the whole day on the bunny slope.
So, with the boyfriend in ski school, I was out on the slopes with his family. The weather wasn't so hot. At the top of the mountain, there was a lot of wind and fog and a light, but sharp sleet that was partially blinding. Seeing as I get to ski so infrequently, I decided not to give up for the day, but to be a trooper in spite of the less-than-ideal conditions. Getting off the gondola at the top, we were carrying our skis down a staircase to the trail. A cold and brutal wind suddenly picked up and threw off my balance. I must have overcompensated against the wind by leaning forward because the next thing I knew, I was falling face-first toward the seven or eight steps that still lay in front of me. After a few contortions and ricochets, I knew I had landed safely but just needed to register a few things.
Like a baby who has just fallen and takes that critical moment to decide whether or not to cry, I was mentally assessing my possible injuries when I heard a woman say "That lady just fell down the stairs! Are you ok?" I was fortunately able to confirm that I was fine. My boyfriend's brother turned around to find me flat on my back at the bottom of the staircase with my legs splayed in a straddle across the steps. He assisted me back up and I was able to ski four more runs after that, including one with Brendan on his new ski legs. Of course later, my wrist was not terribly happy, I had a bruise on my thigh that could have been straight out of that scene in A League of Their Own, and my shin swelled up to be the size of my face.
It seems that, like my mother, I don't do much falling while on the slopes, but rather, while doing something mundane like walking to the chairlift. My mom always whips past everyone with perfect form on the trail and then manages to slip at the bottom of the mountain while adjusting a mitten.
I suppose this particular weekend could have been worse though. My dad did teach me how to fall properly at a young age. True story. When I was about eleven or twelve, I slipped and fell in the hallway of our house, (my battle with my coordination having been a lifelong one). When my dad saw it happen, he immediately launched into an enthusiastic lecture about how to fall properly- how to protect one's face and head etc. It lasted about twenty minutes, included demonstrations and trials, and ended with me agog. I thought, and still think that protecting one's face during a fall is probably instinctual, but then my father has rarely taken pleasure out of anything unless he is able to methodically analyze it. (See also; my skiing form, which he persists in criticizing, even though I view the sport as pure recreation in my adulthood). I suppose some people never lose the teacher in them, mid-life career changes or not.
Not all of my dad's life skill lectures have been in vain in my profession however, (and you would be correct in inferring, Dear Reader, that there have been many similar lectures over the years). I recently performed as "The Cock", (no joke), in The Cunning Little Vixen, an opera by Czech composer Janáček. In staging the scene in which my character is killed off by a fox, the director asked if I knew how to fall properly. Fortunately, I was able to answer: "Yes".
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