An old friend drove over from Portland today. In my previous incarnation, I was her manager; now she and I are colleagues; and I work part-time from Bend while she has every-other-Monday off. She drove over the pass early this morning so that we could snowboard together.
She has skied before but is just now learning to snowboard. Today was her second attempt: two runs down Sunrise in an hour, a leisurely break for lunch, and then a final slide down the hill before her muscles could fail her.
Learning to snowboard is a mysterious endeavor. One of the difficulties is language. How do I make a turn? she'd ask. Well, you swap edges. Rock from toe side to heel side. Ahh, she'd say. We talked about shifting her weight, squaring her shoulders, digging into the snow with her heels. Mm-hm, she'd say.
I learned to ride from one of my husband's friends, a snowboard racer. I used to look at him the way my friend looked at me today. "I understand all those words individually," I'd say, "but I don't know what you mean!" So I'd hold his phrases in mind: fall line, catch line, tree well, edges, swap edges, toe side, heel side. Then I'd slide down the mountain: whee! crash! In sliding I'd begin to feel with my b*dy something that seemed like it might match his phrases, and then in a flash I'd understand. Oh! Swap edges! Why didn't you say so?
My friend did not learn to associate any of the odd snowboarding lingo to what she felt today. Next time, I think.
But once we sat resting in the snow -- we two hominids from the savannah plunked in the snow, in the sky. Pine forest spread out beneath us, on and on, as far as we could see... I pointed out Broken Top and told her stories of some adventures we've had there. My husband proposed on that ridge there; Blake hiked to that glacier all by himself; Sasha's been there, too, in my front pack. After awhile we started down again, and she said that I should go on ahead. "I don't want to keep you," she said. "Go have fun." But I said oh, it's ok; I just love to be up here.
I understand, she said.
It's all good, dude.
