The Winter of My Discontent
April/May by Christine Rasmussen
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" I wonder how I could've ever taken snowboarding for granted. " |
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I now understand why my journalism professor crossed out the word "sustained" in a story about a car accident and replaced it with the word "suffered." "Injuries are suffered, not sustained," he wrote in blood-red ink in the margin, abiding by the Associated Press Manual of Style like a good ol' professor.
One winter denied can make you think closely about all the others. Every powder day replays itself, every moment in the trees when I laughed like a baby who just discovered the joy of peek-a-boo.
My vision blurs now as I stare at the squall outside my window, replaying in my mind a best-of selection of my own personal ride videos . . .
1998. First "bum" season in the Sierras of California. Chair 22 on Lincoln Mountain, Mammoth Mountain's powder chair, during a dumper. Coming off the top, down Avy Chute 3, so steep that just edging a teensy bit launches me into the atmosphere of a celestial powder planet. Onward, down into the trees that hold deep pockets around every bend. Then, up again to claim freshies in my prior line all over again.
Silverton Mountain, 2007. How do I ride waist-deep powder again? Ah yes, by just hauling ass in a mindset of disbelief that snow can be so plentiful during early-season. What riding is all about - I had forgotten in the midst of rails, parks, pipes, and big parking lots. Complete awareness of the rarity of these moments, how people may never feel this kind of freedom in an entire lifetime, how nice it is to reach for the snow and have it right there. Views all around, reminders that we are just a little piece of shit in the world -nothing - possibly not even worthy of making these turns, but one hopes.
. . . back in the present, looking at the big laundry-detergent-sized crystals outside, floating in circles, a slow-motion descent - as if to make super obvious how nice they'd be for flotation purposes - I wonder how I could've ever taken snowboarding for granted. I knew injuries were part of the game, but I didn't count on how much it would hurt to look at a plentiful playground while being denied of it. My gratitude swells for every single turn I was blessed to make - and for every turn I will make in the future.
Yes, when injuries deny you activities that land you in the beauty of it all, they are almost intolerably suffered. My news-writing professor couldn't have been more right - uh, correct - in his swift, blood-red edit.
Christine Rasmussen, a former TransWorld Snowboarding magazine copy editor, is a freelance writer based in Durango. Her suffering is coming to an end as she completes her physical therapy this spring.