Almost Skiing Into the Nearly Divine

In the beginning, God was an acronym. A short series of abbreviated words that each carried a meaning, none of which could be left out, or God would be inadequately expressed. When the Creator was being created, it took some time, thousands of years even, for the word “God” to mean just about everything important and good, preferably male and nothing bad, the Creator of all things created except for those things created by the creations of the Creator. There are some that think that God is nature, and some that think nature worship is idolatrous. God means something different to everyone, and this is why God is one of the world’s most useless and divisive all-important Words.

Today I discovered an idea that so far is just an acronym, except to those who have special knowledge. This acronym took on a transcendental significance to me, so that it means something much more: community, beauty, neighborliness, gentle action, and peace. And more: sustainable sanity, purity, and whiteness. The acronym, MVSTA, for Methow Valley Sport Trails Association, even looks like the Methow Valley, with peaks and valleys, a windy river in the middle. I am still trying to figure out what sort of terrain the “T” might represent that doesn’t force my comparative observation too far into the absurd, even for me.

When we moved here to the Methow Valley three years ago, it wasn’t for the long snowy winter and the world-class cross-country ski system. When we chose our particular house it was not because it was very close to the trailhead, so people asked why we moved here at all, thinking we were nuts. They have found out by now that, yes, there is a certain degree of nuttiness and anti-sociality, especially on my part, but the move has not been regrettable. I have always thought that building a society around an annually replenishing fresh water source with locally proportionate agriculture is a very good idea, as much as I love the deserts.

I have been hounded into skiing by nearly everyone I know, that I should be planning ahead to don skis, even in the heat, when the prices on used equipment are best. I’ve even seen people taking their autumn walks in robotic movements, ski poles tied to their wrists. The friendly harassment to ski had to be worse than the number of times a good suburban Utah Catholic might be invited to church by their Mormon neighbors. Like a Utah non-Mormon, there was nothing in their offer that appealed to me. Then why in the hell, I mean heck, do you live in Utah? Same story, for other reasons, among which might be downhill skiing and the southern deserts, or even for the same reason that we chose the Methow Valley in Washington State: because we thought the work might turn out to be just right. Up to this morning I really preferred the idea of texturing the sheet rock of our budding studio’s ceiling, one of the least interesting chores currently facing me, than pretending to glide across the snow with fiberglass and plastic sticks adhered to the tip of a pair of silly boots that are absolutely useless for every other situation. I realistically pictured myself falling down, getting up, focusing on the ground in front of me unable to even look around at white on white, the off-white of birch trunks, the stained white clinging to the top side of pine and fir boughs. Last year while Cicely and the kids were skiing, I walked along the side of the trails in my boots so I could see with my full attention the things going on around me.

As I took the last drag from my cigarette on my front porch, I have to admit that I was pretty excited about the thought of my first cross-country skiing adventure. My family and a host of friends met up with Allison Delong, persistent friend and volunteer coach to me for a day in Mazama at the Big Valley conservancy and skier with dog trail. Big Valley is a small part of a grand system of a variety of trails operated by the MVSTA. As a group we chose this trail because it is broad and fairly flat, a stunningly beautiful riparian ecosystem and snow-covered farm land, and free. I spent all I was going to spend on skiing so far, having started from scratch down to my wicking long underwear. It didn’t take long for me to wonder at how this, THIS!, could be free. The beauty of this place takes my breath away. Shoulders forward, knees bent, extending my hands further behind me in a long reach behind, feet stepping far forward, every so often even gliding, I covered a hard first mile, then several more genuinely enjoyable ones. On the trail I paused to suck water out of my camel back water pouch thing, and I read about aspens and cottonwoods, and the animals sharing space with the trail for the homo-sapiens-skiers through the trees along the river’s edge.

I found out last night at our neighborhood New Year’s Eve bonfire that my good friend Kristen Smith writes the MVSTA blog http://www.mvsta.blogspot.com/ . I checked it out for inspiration and watched a cool video of grace and folly, and figured I could fit in that mix somewhere on the lower end with some toddlers’ first time on skis. You may want to watch out for me if you see me coming, too large in the torso with Popsicle-stick ankles and size seven shoes. I will probably be sweating profusely, red in the face, but smiling, and probably naively dangerous in a collision. Son and daughter will either be holding back sympathetically and visiting, or a quarter mile ahead. Cicely may be a hundred or so yards back taking it slower like a stroll instead of a recreational activity, choosing the quiet of no company and no discussion.

I met another of my friends on the trail, Rick, a man I had built a shower and interior stone fireplace for, a friend that for two years now had wagged his head while he urged me to ski in the winter. As he stood there, his dog on a leash, we paused for breath and to consider there in a grove of aspens the perfection of his advice. Powder dropped from branches intermittently, his dog sniffing at the dog associating with another skier that passed beside us with a warm hello and a good day wish. I’m feeling pretty sentimental about it all. A little bit religious. If this newly discovered acronym becomes to me like a religion, as it seems to be for many others, it is one that I could come to wrap my head around. I got everything I wanted from it and some surprises that were touching, instructive, generous, and then there were the good people that I shared the trail with. I like a way of perceiving the divine that recommends holding the head up, eyes wide open, with the hope of temporary weightless gliding.