We’ve had more snow the past four days here in the lowlands of Puget Sound than we normally see in an entire winter, but today the temperatures are going into a more normal 40-degree range and The Big Melt has begun.
Living as Leah and I do at the end of a rural road, Mr. Snow Plow Man from the county rarely makes it out to our neck of the woods, and our comings-and-goings by car this week have been difficult and generally an exercise in spinning-one’s-wheels. At last count I think we’ve gotten the car stuck in our own football-field-length driveway at least a half-dozen times. My beat-up old cross country skis have been a far better way to get around.
Kick-and-glide, kick-and-glide. When we moved to the state of Washington 30 years ago and I learned that the Cascade Mountains are buried in snow at least 6 months of the year, cross country skis were one of my first purchases. Later I bought snowshoes too, and I formulated this simple Outdoor Algebra:
Skiing = Falling.
Falling = Ouch.
Snowshoeing = Remaining Upright.
Remaining Upright = Less Ouch.
I kind of put the skis aside and generally did my winter hiking trips on snowshoes. Only this week did I dig the skis out for tours around my neighborhood...and do you know what I learned? I discovered that I’ve magically become a better skier than I remember being. Like someone who learns a foreign language by listening to tapes while they sleep, I’ve gotten better at skiing by leaving the skis stored, untouched, in the garage for the past 20 years.
There’s a trumpet out in our garage that I haven’t played since high school. I wonder whether my no-practice-equals-success method of learning means I can now play the Hayden Trumpet Concerto?
