Just say no to fear!

Ice sucks.

And I can't ski on it.

I'm not saying that it's icy here at Sunday River, but there are some icy patches along with hard packed areas. I fell down a lot on Tuesday, mostly because I ski from side to side on steeper terrain. When I hit those areas, I tend to slide down the mountain with my skis pointed to the side of the mountain. It's weird and scary so I panic and try to dig in--which achieves exactly nothing. Then I get more panicky and usually fall down. I know I should point my skis downhill and get over it, but taking the plunge is so hard.

Eventually, between the fear of the ice and the fear of falling, I lost my nerve on Tuesday. It was a struggle to keep skiing, but I knew I couldn't give up or I would never go back out again. We ended the day skiing the greens so I would feel better. I tried to go out on Wednesday with a new attitude and it mostly worked. On a few occasions I was even able to point my skis down and glide over the ice rather than try to carve ice sculptures with my skis.

I gave it some thought and realized that part of my problem is that I'm afraid to go fast because I'm afraid that means I'm out of control. And I do like to be in control (now there's an understatement). I rationalize my careful maneuvering down the mountain by saying that I never go faster than I think I am capable of handling. See how responsible I am? But in fact, I'm probably going a lot slower than I have to in order to maintain absolute control and avoid fear.

The key today will be to let go and push the fear off to somewhere else. I will have to look to my teenage son for a clue on that. He's overcome several fears by sheer force of will.

Wish me luck!

Bienvenue à Paris!

I finally made it to Paris! It’s been on my list of things to do since I was 14 years old. I never thought I would have to wait more than 30 years before it would happen. And it turned out to be much closer than I thought it would be. In fact I only had to drive 4 hours north of our home in Massachusetts to get there. Naturally I saved a lot of money this way.

Oh. What did you say? I’m not in Paris, France? I’m in Paris, Maine? How can that be? And are you saying that the sign to Norway was kidding, too?

Anyway, that was day 1 of our trip. It took 5 hours to get to Sunday River because we made a couple of stops and the last 30-45 miles are on a 2-lane highway filled with travelers trying to get to ski country for February vacation.

It was raining/sleeting/snowing when we arrived so we kept our fingers crossed for the precipitation to turn to snow. No such luck as we woke up to rain on Monday. We skied anyway. The rain ended rather early. It was a bit drizzly the rest of the day and we were often skiing in fog. But life-lemons-lemonade-seeds. The last isn’t traditionally part of the saying, but we like it. We don’t know what it means metaphorically, but we’ll stick to it.