Skiing, Not Skiing...

Seems as though I have developed a specialty of going to these amazing ski locales, even though I don’t ski.  My experience totally different from those people clad in immovable ski boots and random layers.  I mean, I am a wearer of the layers but have no need for ski boots.  It is an interesting thing to observe...to be in this world but not of it.  To come to these places with a wholly different intention.  To watch people effortlessly cruise down the mountain with varying degrees of grace and ability.  

Today is a particularly beautiful day!  Sun shining, slopes glistening.  I am sitting outside in the sun, heating up to the point I am going to have to start shedding those layers...

I hear the ski talk, the bragging, the questioning, the learning, the mentoring.  It is like I am this alien, dropped into this world to observe, enjoy but not completely understand.  I have skied.  I know how to do it.  I just have no desire to do it anymore.  I enjoy walking and working out and do not want to do anything to jeopardize those things.  Also, my neck is completely jacked so much so that I wouldn’t risk it for anything.  I do not know if my neck will ever heal to a point where it isn’t level 6 painful pretty much every day, but I do know that skiing would be a bad idea...on multiple levels.  Nope, my role in this environs, is casual observer.  Audience to those that can and do.

My task to sit slope side and just enjoy the view, the people, the music and sunshine.  Right now I wish my daughter was here.  She would be in heaven!  Snowboarding down the mountain with her hair on fire.  That is just who she is.  And not who I am...at least not anymore.

Some random guy sitting next to me was doing his best to engage me in conversation and was very upset that I was not skiing.  He did his best to attempt to lure me into a further discussion about the relative merits of skiing.  He was off-putting.  I mean, why did he care if I skied or not?  Why was it important to him that I engage in an activity that would most likely injure me further?  How presumptuous of him to look at me and make decisions about what is right for my life, and that he would know better than me?  I had my AirPods in and so I just kept pretending like I couldn’t hear him...Why do people do that?  Have a strong opinion about your life and how you are living it, thinking that they know better than you?  It was weird and made me not want to engage in conversation with anyone else all day.

To be honest, I am not all that happy I am not skiing either.  But I have accepted that it is just not my thing or sport and I have physical limitations that bar me from even attempting.  I would like nothing more than to be my age and fly down the slopes.  That seems way more befitting of me and my life. But alas, that is not my fate.  My job right now is to enjoy other people doing it, to photograph and enjoy hearing all the slope side stories, to revel in the beauty and glory of high mountains covered in snow and the risk takers who navigate those hillsides.  My task, is to watch and enjoy someone else’s sport.  It is not mine.  My job is to heal and watch and wait and know that I am right where I am supposed to be...not skiing.

Again, still...