Living the Dream

We were surrounded by red, white, and blue. The stars and stripes were everywhere, repeated over and over across the field in front of us. We sat next to my mom and dad, trying to read the names on the memorial that stood proudly in front of us. We saw the name Jones repeated over…

It’s over. Wait, seriously, it’s over? It’s like the second week of May and my friends are putting their skis away for the season. Some of my spring friends I didn’t even get a chance to ski with and it’s all over? It’s all over and I was just getting started, just getting the hang…

It never felt like this before. My chest was in the right position and wasn’t getting bounced backward every few turns. My right shoulder wasn’t getting jammed into itself with every pole plant, forcing my torso up and my entire body to stretch out. That beautiful extension that forces me to then retract everything while…

It’s a challenge.  For years, we’ve been spring skiing the same trail in the same way with the same lines. You knew the bumpers would hold court on the skier’s left, both on the middle and bottom sections. Man, do they love that final section where they could show off for the Umbrella Bars. It…

When I went to Kent Pond the other week to launch for the first time, I was all stoked to enjoy the beauty of nature right from the boat launch. But the joke was on me because right behind the treasured bench was a bag of unattended—you guessed it—dog poop. How nice of someone to…

I woke up ready to go for my regular morning walk—just a quick jaunt out the door for a few miles to get my circulatory system up and going. Usually, I just throw on the appropriate footwear for the weather—this week, it ranged from flip-flops to snow boots—and throw a coat over my pajamas. I…

It had been years since we were all together. A decade and a half since we had all been scattered to the wind, each of us going our own direction, traveling wherever the wind may take us. To Colorado, to DC, to Toronto, to California, to Okemo. They had all been rookies together, ski patrol…

A surrendering laugh erupted. You know, the kind where you try so hard to make something happen, but you just have to give up and laugh at the silliness of it all—The old lipstick on a pig or making lemonade from lemons. Fake it until you make it. These are all classic terms for when…

I had ridden bikes all day with a couple of friends. In my memory, it was one of my friend’s birthdays, and we were working on her goal of being able to ride Yo Vinny. Not without putting a foot down because that section of ladder around the big rock would always be tight.  But…

Spring looks a little different this year. Never mind that the rain stole all the snow off my lawn way before I was ready to put my Nordic skis away for the season. Or that all the local snowmobile trails shut down because the water bars are now exposed, and no one wants to ride…

The sign went up this week: a beautiful diamond sign, construction orange with a reflective black border. In many ways, the sign brings uncertainty, a harbinger of what will come over the next few weeks and months. We don’t really know how big the monster it warns of will be—or how long it will be…

Gliding through the forest, I gently rub my hand against the bark of the nearest tree. It doesn’t matter the season; no, it does not. Whether the tree has leaves or a whole bunch of moss, it is filled with such beauty I am sometimes at a loss. “Wow,” I will say over and over…

We lost a revered ski friend this week who passed with his skis on. I worked with Dan in Ministars over two decades ago. Since the BF and I left the Ramshead team, we’ve bumped into Dan in the woods more times than we can count, especially since all those years together at Rams gave…

It’s completely rare, but we left Killington this past week. We went skiing—at another resort.  We always joke that we all get this Beast365 with the Ikon attached, but rarely venture out of town to use it until our west coast vacation. I mean, there are several iKon resorts in Vermont, but you seldom hear of Killington folk making…

We all do dumb things in our 20s, right? When you are testing the boundaries of life to see which lines are flexible and which are legit. But in your 20s, you don’t have any experience in life, and you certainly cannot imagine listening to those who went before you. You might not mean to…