BRECKENRIDGE — “Hold on a minute,” Ian respectfully snickered. “Your poles are still rubber-banded together.”
I wondered if Ian, my Breckenridge, adult-beginner-ski-lesson-instructor, would have found it just as laughable had a small fry from the bunny hill bumbled up to him with poles still hooked together.
But me? I was 25.
Maybe it was a little funny.
The first 25 years of my life had been filled with so many wonderful opportunities. Learning how to ski had not been one of them.
“Well of course they’re still rubber-banded together,” I squawked. “How else am I supposed to carry these things?” I flung the poles down with conviction, where they settled gently on the sun-kissed snow.
“I’ll show you how,” Ian said. He smiled. I think he may have even winked. “I’ll get you skiing on a blue run in no time.”
Growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, terms like “ski bunny” and “fresh pow” were mysterious, enchanting expressions, ones I had only read about in the books I checked out from the library, or heard in the hallways of middle school from the popular kids. Skiing became lodged in my imagination. From what I could gather, everything about ski culture was just plain cool, and I wanted to be a part of it.
Of course, my family’s annual vacation away from Chicago was focused entirely on escaping the snow and the cold. We’d head to our condo in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the state that might be the farthest from a snowy slope, apart from Hawaii. In Florida, the most uncomfortable part of my trip was the soggy T-shirt I wore to protect my shoulders from my sunburn.
Of all the library books I read, I couldn’t remember any that featured a heroine who slogged around in the ocean wearing a T-shirt. After college, I moved to Colorado, seeking adventure and an opportunity to finally learn to ski.
Now, in Breckenridge — after the most strenuous clomp of my life from the parking lot, and with skiing toddlers swerving all around me — I finally understood my family’s breezy vacations in Florida.
“All right, adult-beginner friends,” Ian said, “this is how to put your boot into the ski.”
With grace and finesse, Ian slid his toe first, and then his heel down. His boot clicked in victoriously.
I awkwardly fished my boot into the binding a few times with no luck. Swimming with a T-shirt on wasn’t nearly this difficult.
But suddenly, I heard that magic click. My boot popped into the ski. I was in! My skis were on, the rubber-bands were off, and just like my boots, the lesson began to click.
I went up a moving walkway, and had pizza on the way down. Then, I rode up on a dangling pogo-stick and french-fried my way to the bottom. Later on, I graduated to chair lifts. I glided in giant loops that spanned the face of the mountain, and I hockey-stopped inches away from Ian’s feet.
My full-day lesson ended with a couple of blue runs, and couple of falls, too. I’d wipe out, yard-sale, but I never felt discouraged — pushing myself back onto my feet was undeniably the hardest, but most empowering, part.
As the day went on, the glittery image had I created of what skiing might be like never ended up matching reality. At 25, I no longer cared about looking cool. Just like all the pipsqueaks around me, I let my guard down and had fun. Because it turns out that the reality of skiing is way better than what I’d imagined.
When you’re wowed by getting your boot into your binding, looking cool becomes irrelevant, and four years later, I’m still excited when I hear that click — and that is truly cool.
Francie Swidler: 303-954-1001, fswidler@denverpost.com
