Out of Practice Maybe, but Not Out of Passion

I awakened at 4:30 in the morning to let the dog out. He is an old dog, and his bones sometimes creak and moan like a slow, arthritic ship. In his prime, however, Captain Bob was swift and reckless, filled with a setter’s disposition for the chase and a passion set ablaze by an open door.

On still summer nights, he would disappear into darkness, leaving behind the faint sound of metal tags jangling. But it was in winter that he truly soared.

The snow spoke to both of us, and it was equally thrilling and beautiful to watch him run, skimming the ground, with wings of snow spraying from his sides like water from a Jet Ski.

When I opened the door this morning, we both stood silently still, peering out at a thick, fluffy blanket of white that had arrived in darkness. It was a telling pause.

Except for brief spits of time, I have always lived in snow, first in Colorado, then Michigan, Minnesota and now Lake Arrowhead. There was a time in my life when waking up at 4:30 or 5:30 or noon or 3 in the afternoon and seeing fresh snow meant only one thing: I was being summoned by the gods to go skiing.

This calling came to me later in life. I was 31 years old and working at a small, spirited weekly newspaper, the Aspen Times, which, like the community it served, did not take life so seriously. I learned that to survive winters in Aspen, though, one must cultivate passions, something to get you through the months of snow and bitter cold and loud, fur-bearing Texans.

At the time, the word “powder” could be taken a couple of ways in Aspen, and since I couldn’t afford to become a cocaine addict, I signed up for a ski lesson, taking to the wilds of Panda Peak, finding my place among 3-year-olds encased in Gortex worth more than my car.

There was nothing natural about learning to ski. My instructor, schooled in methods of visualization, explained that I should position my skis in the shape of a piece of pie. This I mastered, no sweat. Friends started calling me “The Wedge,” which, I figured, was better than being called “Lemon Chiffon” or “Mincemeat.”

Initially, skiing was nothing more than cold, painful, frustrating, frightful, expensive and wet. All that changed once I conquered Panda Peak and advanced to a real mountain, one where you couldn’t ski in either direction. As I rode the lift, I envisioned myself being carried beyond clouds to sacred heavens, where dangers and adventures awaited.

I was going where eagles dared, where the sun, moon and stars beckoned at my fingertips--to the very top of . . . Buttermilk Mountain. Thankfully, my lungs did not collapse from the change in air pressure. Other parts of my body were not so fortunate.

There is a sense of discovery ever present in skiing, and the first thing I discovered is that it takes awhile to snowplow down a mountain on your face. I also discovered why there are so many bars at the bottoms of ski runs.

So it is that I did not fall easily in love with skiing. The stirring in my heart did not surface while dancing through mogul fields or racing the wind. It happened in early morning, while I was sitting down--riding a chairlift through a frozen canyon of pines, coated with frosty diamonds, beneath a sparkling sky. There is no way to forget such pomp and beauty, such cold, cleansing air as it enters your soul.

In Aspen, there was an unwritten code, which I shall refer to as the 6-inch rule. If, in the course of earning or stealing a living, parenting, being parented, being a spouse or being spoused, one awakens to at least 6 inches of fresh champagne powder, one does not even consider going to work, school, home or anyplace other than the top of the nearest ski mountain. I have friends who still adhere to this rule. In some faiths, you go to hell if you don’t.

On those rare days now when I find myself on a chairlift, listening to the silence, marveling at the shimmering light, I think about days gone by, when wealth was measured in inches, when the future never extended beyond the next run, and the past was right behind you, outlined by fresh tracks.

I never got very good at skiing, but, still, it consumes me. As I make my way down the mountain, I search for unfamiliar grace and speed. I chase the honeyed sensation of floating on clouds. I do not see or smell or hear or taste. I only feel.

The sight of snow this morning, as I stood at the door in my robe and slippers with Captain Bob, made me think of times gone by. We looked out at the ground and trees for an extended moment, neither of us moving.

He did not take off running, rolling and skidding. I did not get out the ski wax. I stood and watched him, stiff from the stillness of his sleep, hobble out the door. And pee in the snow.

We did not go back upstairs to sleep. He lay down at my feet as I sat on the couch in darkness longing for the snow of my past, looking out the window and watching it fall in thick, feathery flakes, wondering if it yet measured 6 inches.