Skiing

I love to ski. I forget how much I really love it when it's the summer time. It's hard to describe.

Maybe I should go back to the beginning. When you learn to do something there is an extreme amount of thought that goes on. Take, riding a bike for instance. You have to think about keeping your feet on the pedals, you have to think about turning them, you to think about keeping it moving, you have to think about balance, you have to look where you're going and determine your route, you have to think about turning the wheel... But eventually you kind of figure this all out and your brain begins to cut out a lot of the thought that originally was there. After some practice, you don't really think about it anymore. It's less of a conscious thought instead it's a response. You're thinking, but not loudly.

I learned to ski when I was very young. There was a program for elementary schools to go to the mountain and learn to ski. Mt Holly elementary's day was Friday afternoon. Those were the best days as an elementary age kid. I began when I was 6. I remember crashing down the smallest of inclines into the arms of a volunteer instructor. I then remember learning before I was truly afraid to hurt myself. Kids have fear, but they can be more easily encouraged to get beyond it than adults. Because of this skiing for me is like riding a bike, swimming or even walking to some. I learned so young that my body reacts to a situation rather than my brain making decisions and solving problems.

Skiing is like walking, I don't to think about it. That is why I love skiing because I concentrate, but my mind gets quite. As I'm going down the hill I'm hyper focused. The only sounds are those of my skis against the snow and the wind rushing past me. I look at the trail ahead and respond. In a world of over stimulation from music, advertisements, noise... it's hard to find a place where you can get outside and inside your head quiet. It's a form of meditation. I always leave the hill happy. For me I find that peace and serenity on the slopes.

2012

So since I last blogged, I left southern California, went to Wyoming, spent a good chuck of time in Yellowstone, went back to North Dakota where I found out the program in California wasn't going to open for the fall because it was no longer financially viable. I scrambled big time to find a job. I must have sent out about 20 applications to different places. I've learned a few things from doing this:

1) YMCA camps never get back to me. I don't know why, I complete their application correctly, send it on time. I know others who have worked for YMCA organizations, so they hire some people, but I'm done applying to camps affiliated with the name I'd rather not waste my time anymore.

2) When I get into a bind, I apply EVERYWHERE. The deep south hasn't popped up on my radar as a place I need to work or visit but I was applying to places in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana.

3) Sending in your application late is never to your advantage. Because I had found out late in the application game for the fall that I didn't actually have a job I was sending in my applications to places that were still accepting. Many places had closed their application dates.

The place that I did end up getting a job at was in New Hampshire. So I got in my car and drove from North Dakota to Conway New Hampshire. I worked as an outdoor environmental educator focusing on natural sciences at a program which was frankly better in every way than the program in California. I could elaborate, but I won't. Just as a side note to my friends that still work at this place in cali, it's great to start there, but seriously come work where I do, you're better appreciated, better paid, and given better direction, oh and you never have to sleep in the cabins with the kids.

I went there, worked, loved it, and at the end of the season came back to work at Okemo. I found a little place to rent in Mt Holly and am once again back to my ski bum ways. I love the kind of life that I live, bouncing around from place to place, always on the move, seeing different places, always having an adventure planned. I've been described as a gypsy, vagabond, and hobo but I've come to prefer drifter. My family and friends are very supportive of this alternative lifestyle I've begun to live. But lately I've been given some constructive criticism from people who only sort of know me. A friend who is always on the out skirts of my social circle, I talk to him once a year or so when I need to get my car inspected, asked me what I was doing. So I told him. He smiled politely and asked how my boyfriend was. Well I don't have a boyfriend easy question to answer. He then said that he was sorry that I didn't have someone to share my life with. I'm not sorry at all, I share my experiences with a lot of people, friends, family and people who I meet along the way. I'm not lonely at all. I know what he's getting at, and he's right, I don't have that but I don't need it right now. He said that he had met someone and they were getting married and that they had just bought a piece of land. He asked if that wasn't the goal in life to meet someone, settle down, and basically build a white picket fence around a house that you fill with a large TV, a dog and 2.5 kids in that order. He then went on to say that I'm not doing myself any favors but not settling down. I'll never find anyone if I'm only living in a place for 3 months out of the year. I argued that maybe the goal in life isn't to find that person but to do exactly what makes you happy and maybe you will meet someone special along the way. I'm too much of a traveler and dreamer to put roots down in one place. He had a vision of life for himself that was not my vision, but worthy of equal respect.

Some of my friends have asked how long I'm going to live this kind of life. To be honest, I don't know, just as I don't know where I'm going to be a year from now in 2013. I've only been doing this for about a year now and I feel no reason to stop. People forget that I did put down roots in Benin, I was there for two years living my life. I'm focusing my attention on adding experience to my life. In Benin I felt that I was alive more days than not. That is what I'm seeking in my life, to feel alive, to see as many things as I can. I'll stop when I find reason to stay.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - H.D. Thoreau