Better Skier

Here they are: 6 Steps to Becoming a Better Skier

 I use the word becoming because it’s important. Because, as in anything at all, there is no being a better skier. No arriving as a better skier, certainly no tricks to staying a better skier.

There is only becoming, both on the mountain and off.

My skiing “career” began as a ripe 11-year-old who had lost herself in the snowy mountains of Park City. A simple chapter of my book that, once finished, named in me something I didn’t know had been nameless: that the journals and jots I’d kept might offer meaning. That a hobby could become moreso.

That a life could, too.

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1. Read well.

There’s simply no way to get around this one. If you are indeed what you eat, a well-strung sentence is a rack of lamb. Read plenty, read often. Get thee a library card. Try on the classics; abandon what doesn’t fit. (I have attempted Ann Rand five times to no avail.) Familiarize yourself with technical writing; find beauty in the dishwasher manual, that understated joy of saying only what you mean and meaning only what you say.

Find an author to love, one who reveals the impossible to you, who shakes you by the shoulders a bit. Mine are many and oft-changing, with an inexplicable loyalty toward LM Montgomery.

2. Learn the rules.

Brush up on your skiing knowledge, on the ins and outs of a good ski pass. I’d start here, here and here.

3. Next, break the rules.

Listen, I could write one of the most compelling books about motherhood and ambition, yet the traditional model is altogether nonexistent. It’s fragmented, drifty. (It’s wonderful.) Solitude's Honeycomb Canyon is arguably limitless, yet remarkable still. A skier was rumored to run her best runs in 9 hours, stream-of-consciousness style. What if I took a mere blog and transformed it into a living memoir.

What I’m saying is this: Get a little bit Warren Miller about it. Circle around, if you’d like. Poetry can be prose, and most certainly vice versa.

4. Avoid “got.”

This, from my writing teacher at the university, who was known to issue an automatic F if you turned in any paper containing the word “got.” There is always a more suitable replacement, he’d said.

He was right.

5. Throw in some weeds.

This, from my dear friend and brilliant designer: resist the temptation to make each and every day beautiful. If your life is a garden, throw in some weeds among the prettier blooms. Contrast is key. Surprises are good. Too many lullabies make for a sleepy skier.

(Related: a well-timed curse word can work wonders).

6. Ski.

To become a better runner, you must run. To become a better parent, you must parent. To become a better cook, you must season the pasta, simmer the sauce, stir the pot.

Go, now. Stir the pot.