The Luckiest Girl on the Ski Field

I sat on the snow, frowning. One hand was holding the edge of the snowboard attached to my feet, and the other hand shaded my eyes, which were looking nowhere in particular, from the blinding sun. I think I may have been sitting like that for at least half an hour.

I was able to do this (sit on the snow for long periods of time without having my bum freeze off) because my rented snowboard pants were comfortably thick, protecting me against the cold, the pain of my frequent falls, and occasionally even making me hot - so much so that I would want to take off all my clothes and lie naked on the snow (although it was never done).

My position of meditation was one that I hoped would give me enough courage and strength to do a run down the slope, or tilt rather, alone. (We were in the beginners area. The ski field was, effectively, flat.) The thought of the idea, however, was almost terrifying. As flat as the slope might be, I was still sitting at the very top, with little knowledge of how to control my snowboard. And there were many, many people to run over.

My thoughts were interrupted when my shaded eyes (which were seeing occasional black spots at this stage) stopped wandering to rest upon a tall, lone girl in dark sunglasses trudging up the slope with snowboard in hand.

"Jo!" I called out to the familiar figure, and waved.

"Hey." She smiled and trudged over to where I was sitting. "How's it going?"

"I don't know. I've never done this before - I'm trying to gather enough courage to go down on this thing by myself... but I don't know if I can do it. It's impossible to stop!"

"Yeah I know! I've just figured out how to turn and stop properly, it's so hard though!"

"You're pretty impressive though, I was watching you before, all almost pro-like. I'm so useless. Waiting for my boyfriend, he was trying to teach me how to do turns and stuff before, but now he's gone to help my sister learn how to ski a bit."

I waved in the general direction at the bottom where Boy was offering my sister some useful tips on how to control her skis.

"Yeah, I saw before. You're so lucky! My boyfriend is up there somewhere," she pointed up at the mountains "and he's left me down here with his snowboard. I'm so pissed off!"

For a short, silent moment, she really did look pissed off. I briefly turned my gaze back to Boy, suddenly feeling more special than I had been when he had been holding me by the hands and taking me down the slope slowly and patiently.

Boy likes to snowboard. And he's good. My earlier insistence that he go up to the higher parts of the mountain so he could get in a decent days snowboarding had been in vain. He had, and continued to assure me that he would much rather spend the day with me, helping me learn. (Still, I could not rid of the guilt induced by the nagging feeling that I was a burden who was wasting his time and talent.)

"Anyhow, I better get back to my boarding." Jo broke into my thoughts. "Good luck!"

"Yeah, you too."

And with that, she proceeded to drag her snowboard-laiden self to the top of the slope, leaving me sitting in my meditative position.

Only this time, almost smiling with the knowledge that I was, quite possibly, the luckiest girl on the ski field.

previous - next; thanks, diaryland.