Logistics
Just as an experiment, just to see if it could be done, we took Adam skiing during the weekend.
Skiing itself requires a fair amount of logistical tooling-up. This has always appealed to me, the early-to-bed following night-before planning and preparation: car fueled up, skis in the roofbox, boots and rucksack ready to go by the door, clothes laid out so that when that 0-dark-o’clock wake-up comes you can spring into them in a single bound, all the better to bolt a cup of coffee and to be on the mountain when the lifts first creak into life at rosy-fingered dawn. I admit that my approach here can be borderline OCD. Only in the last few years have I stopped packing files and a grit-gel, two hats and a fleece balaclava, two extra layers and three pairs of gloves in various weights to allow for varying weather. I’ve definitely relaxed about the logistics, and have become a lot more flexible on that rosy-fingered dawn business.
Try this project with a baby, though, and the logistical challenges come rushing back. Leaving the house in this weather for a walk around the block with this boy requires significant preparation. Drag him up a mountain into changeable weather and it multiplies by a factor of, um, well, a lot. You do the math.
Or let Magda do it:
We were surprised at how well he did. He wasn’t crazy about the boots at first, but he got on the chair with no misshaps first thing. Several runs later he had a little trouble figuring out the T-bar, but he seems to be a natural. By the end of the day the more popular runs were getting a little skied off, and this did lead to a few sketchy moments as his legs began to get tired, but overall he really got the hang of it and enjoyed his first day of skiing.
Of course I am joking about this. The boy just learned to walk for crying out loud, you didn’t really think we’d put him on SKIS at 13 months?
He was snowboarding.
As an experiment it was a qualified success. A friend who’s away lent us her place in Ljubljana, which put us only about 20 minutes from a popular and user-friendly mountain. This arrangement greatly lowered the commitment, enabling us to feel that we could retreat at any time and not feel dumb about having made a long drive. So Saturday we went up the cablecar in heavy clouds and emerged through their tops into brilliant mid-afternoon sunshine.
We were pretty excited about this. Last year, with Adam fresh from the womb, was an entirely ski-free winter. Put them side by side, first-born child vs. season of skiing, and there’s just no comparison, but still it was something that we missed and spent a lot of time wondering how we could re-incorporate this hobby into our lives. Taking the boy to the mountain worked well enough for a one-time novelty thing, but it’s not something we can do on a regular basis, not this year anyway. But for Saturday it was okay; Magda skied for a few hours, re-learning how it all works after nearly two years, and I sat with the boy in the gostilna, debating the relative merits of beer and kuhano vino and trying to keep him from ingesting too many bottle caps off the filthy floor. Though I didn’t ski at all (my skis were having a much-needed spa day in the mountain’s tuning shop), the snowsuit logistics coupled with a few hours in ski boots left me feeling as tired as though I had, and Magda was surprised at how much it takes out of you after so long away. We were grateful for the laughably short drive back to our borrowed residence in the center of Ljubljana.
Sunday Magda stayed at the apartment with the boy while I went back up to the mountain. This turned out to be a good decision, because although the sun shone again, it was borderline bitter with enough wind to immediately turn Adam’s cheeks red delicious — both sets.
Since I started using telemark skis several years ago, skiing for me has been a constant battle against mediocrity; no matter how many days I manage to spend on the snow in a season, by the time it ends I feel like I am just starting to get it, and by the time the first day of the next year comes I’m back at square one. Taking an entire year off from it has predictable consequences. Also, it’s hard to overestimate the degree to which muscular strength plays a role in the ability to make graceful telemark turns. Think of legs like the mighty oak and you are beginning to close in on the requirement. Even when I was at my zenith of burly masculinity, not even the most generous would ever have said that I had powerful legs. With my recent lack of exercise they might now be best compared to raw linguine. It doesn’t take too many runs of linking tele turns to turn them into the overcooked version.
But I can’t complain. In fact, my laziness, lack of practice, poor physical condition, encroaching senescence, and fatherhood seem to have converged at a result that leaves me entirely content. I no longer am able to ski from rosy-fingered dawn until the sun suddenly, frigidly, drops behind the shoulder of the mountain. Nor do I want to, much as it pains me to admit it. By the time I rode the cablecar down and made the short commute back to our friend’s apartment, I was missing my son, missing his mother, and longing for the day when the three of us can ski together, even if it’s just for an hour or two at first. As Adam learns, he’ll be growing into longer days on the slopes as my feeble ancient creaking old body fails by pathetic degrees. I can always sit in the bar and watch him whiz past.
Adam’s last cablecar ride;
Previous skiing mentioned.
