!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
Friday, the traditional end of a ski week, found us taking the Big Burn lift all the way to the top of the mountain. It was my graduation day, when I would finally stretch my wings away from the easier green slopes, and try a blue run, Upper Powderhorn. The Burn lift took 15 minutes, featuring foot rests with an arm bar for the air-starved and weary. the late March Colorado sun beat harshly on the snow, quickly melting its surface, frozen from last night’s cold. There is a magic moment, mid-morning to noon, before the softness turns to slush. Or, as Mike asserted, “Before the corn turns to mashed potatoes.”
During the week, I had quashed my fears, and found a hidden confidence following Mike’s directions. Advancing from a snowplow to a stem turn, I tried to keep my skis locked together, the way he did. Lingering anxiety, however, held me in a three-point stance.
“It doesn’t matter how you look, as long as you’re having fun,” Mike insisted whenever I complained.
“But I want to do this with you, share your skiing!”
“I’ve been here, what, forty, fifty days now? And I can just barely go down a black diamond without feeling like a klutz. It’s not easy, it takes time. Let’s have fun where we can.” He turned around, craned his neck, then leaned back towards me. “Behind us, right behind us, that’s where our house is, across the valley!”
The higher we went, the brighter the sun, the sharper the shadows and shorter the trees. Alpine peaks came into view as we crested the final ridge. Sliding off the chair, we headed right, easing to a stop near tree-line. Three thousand feet below, a V-shaped valley separated us from a higher mountain. Seen from his house, it caught the morning light, a shadow quickly descending across its face signifying the new day’s start. Up here, almost close enough to touch, it dominated our vision, challenging my perception of proportion.
Upper Powderhorn proved easier than I’d feared. Cut towards the left while the slope fell off to the right, I could ski mostly on my stronger right leg. At the bottom, the trail forked left, to Lower Powderhorn, gentle yet uncrowded as far as I could see. Max Park meandered down from the right, filled with nervous skiers, many slower and more awkward than I imagined myself to be. I pointed left, “Can we go there?”
He tapped the black diamond twice with his ski pole, saying, “Too hard for me – it ends up in a gully, then something called ‘Belly-Grabber Pitch.’ Let’s go this way, Max Park.”
Mike seemed so confident, composed, in control, as he skied with me I couldn’t imagine him hesitant with shaky legs, the way I felt on skis. We tried a few more “blues” on the lower slopes. At noon, Mike suggested, “Should we quit? I’ve got to be at Guido’s by 2:30 today.”
I didn’t want to leave, not when I was just beginning to get my ski legs. I knew I’d miss these easy days, without professors droning on or papers to write, no friends challenging my every move. I needed to capture this sanctuary, this hidden time we both had shared, keep it in a snow globe, ready to be shaken any time I felt bereft. Mike left, off to peel potatoes and zucchini, fill the Hobart with tray after tray of half-empty plates, scour pots and pans, and (his favorite) make desserts. I scrounged through Jack and G’s cabinets, finally finding a few blank pages in a notebook, some magazines, glue, and scissors.
Sitting at the writing table, glancing up to watch the alpenglow fade slowly across the Divide, showering Mt. Elbert with bright pink, than faded purple, and finally greying shadow, I slowly, methodically, built a collage. First, from Ski Magazine, I extracted a face shot of America’s current ski hero, Billy Kidd. Next, feeling like a kidnapper creating a ransom note, I cut out and then pasted individual letters and numbers spelling out “21 – I Love yoU – MiKe”, and pasted them across his face. Above that, an ad for skis produced “being happy…” which went above his lanky blond hair. I stuffed this into the inner pocket of my suitcase, intending to finish Mike’s 21st birthday card at home. Then I took a post card of Aspen Mountain and wrote to my parents, sharing my wonder at the mountain beauty, the massive piles of snow on Loveland Pass, and assuring them the searing sun had not burned me.
On the flight back to Cincinnati, I took a window seat, marveling at how Kansas was even flatter seen from the air as driving through it. Once home, I took out the collage, and set to work adding a final remembrance. I meticulously covered the entire surface of a 5 inch by 8 inch piece of construction paper with any and everything that popped into my mind about Mike and I at the present moment.
In the upper left corner, I started with a palm tree, then mouse ears and balloons. Below that “Disneyland” with a little mine train chugging up a miniature hill. To the east, “Los Angeles”, the sun surrounded by swirls of smog, and, for emphasis, the word itself repeated three times. Across one side, the geography of his future – and our recent – life: “Colorado – Aspen – Snowmass – Los Angeles – Cincinnati?
Given my tiny handwriting, I had lots of space left. Next, a rendition of his W letter sweater, surrounded by other icons of the sport: Molly, names from his little kids’ team, teammates and coach from college, and “Katy Winters”. A maze, leading from “Psychiatrist” to “Doctor” to “Medical School” to “Why”, until, finally, at the center, “Shrink”. Across the bottom, “Loving Beauty To Love Lovely Love. I dredged up Jason Robards’ line from 1,000 Clowns, “Why weren’t you born a chair?”. Above that, hints from three songs: “Let it be”, “Like a bird on the wire, I have tried to be free ~ “ and “Sooner or Later, one of us must know that I really did try to get close to you”.
At the top, an homage to our ski week: “Schuss-boomer”, “Chair lifts”, “Snowplow”. His now dead car, Judy Be Good, and a reminder to “Fasten Seat Belts”. In the middle, Mt. Albert, 14,431’
I grabbed some crayons, putting in a topsy turvy rendition of the Birthday Song, ending “Happy Birthday Dearest Mike, Happy Birthday To You.” I placed random green (his favorite color) squiggles, added a few orange ones near Los Angeles, and discovered there was still room for a few more tokens. Random words and phrases came to mind: “The only way to grow is to grow together”, Learning, Sharing, Outside, Inside, Love, “together apart”, “apart together”, Trying, Love, the first lines to our high school Alma Mater, and in the few remaining spaces, “Mountains and Oceans”, “Oceans and Mountains” repeated several times.
I pasted it on the brown paper with Billy Kidd, and found a blank spot waiting to be filled. I grabbed the postcard to my parents, the one with Aspen Mountain on the front, cut off the sides with pinking shears, and glued it down.
Finally, at the top, middle and bottom, I wrote, “Happy Birthday Mike – I Love You Very Much – Sarah Jane”, “Happy Birthday to Mike”, and, finally, “May It Be a Good 21”, his age underlined six times. Pleased with my handiwork, I leaned back, grabbed my father’s 35 mm camera, and took a snapshot, before sealing it in a manilla envelope, doubly stamped for West Village, Colorado.
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