Sunday, 6 November 2011

Confessions of a Summer-loving Mountain Dweller

I am a karmic ingrate. No other way to look at it: I live in paradise and am insufficiently grateful of the fact.

I came to Whistler with a man whom I will refer to simply as 'Geoff' (largely because that is his actual name).We came for the season and we came for the skiing.  (Well - our unemployed status coupled with an offer of rent-free housing from my parents may have contributed to the decision, too).  You know, it was just going to be a few months - work the season, hit the real world in April. I mean, who stays past April in a ski resort, right?

So - thirty years, a marriage (to the man known simply as 'Geoff'), a mortgage, two kids, a dog, and five cats later, it would seem that I stay in a ski resort past April.

It would also seem that Whistler has a hold on me not dissimilar to a middle-aged woman hugging her one-and-only eighteen-year-old son as he leaves home for scary-points-unknown for an undisclosed amount of time. Tight, if you weren't sure... it's a tight hold.

One assumes then, as I have succumbed to this death-grip imposed by my hometown, I would be a dyed-in-the-wool, fresh-tracks-or-die, live-for-opening-day skier. Clearly, someone blessed with the good fortune to  be living in one of the most awesome ski destinations in the world would be lapping up the bountiful benefits offered at her doorstep. You would think...

Truth? I live for summer. I love summer. I love cruising the trails, I love that special smell of the forest on a hot day, I love how a sunburnt sky at ten o'clock at night makes you feel like worry is a useless emotion and life will go on forever... Summer is epic mountain adventures, alpine meadows choked with colour, five am sunrises, meat on a barbecue...ah, the joys are endless!

Maybe the reason I love summer so much is because it is so fleeting in the mountains. When folks at sea-level are seeing daffodils, we're still shovelling snow. If you measure shovelful to shovelful, spring, summer and fall, in total, last six months, and, of those, you'd probably only call two months 'hard' summer.

And winter. Winter is a relentless trudge of cold, snow, grey, with the odd direct-from-Hawaii pineapple express thrown in for good measure. The man known simply as Geoff has often suggested that I need to 'embrace' winter. I've considered it: I mean there are good winter days, those days when the sky is surreally blue and the snow appears littered with diamonds. Days followed by evenings when the alpenglow is impossibly pink and exquisitely beautiful. Of course, there's also the smell of the first snow. Indescribable and unique.

Incoherent ramblings aside though, winter for the most part is like a thirty-something child coming back to live at home: it's great for a bit, but you quickly begin to wish it would move on.

I've been asked why I stay in Whistler - there's plenty of British Columbia that could provide me with a longer summer.  Sometimes I don't know myself - could it be that maybe summer wouldn't be quite so sweet if it weren't for the winter?  Possibly. All I know for sure is that I'm facing down another winter, and that I live in guilt knowing how completely I under-appreciate what others would give their left ski to enjoy.

Oh ya.. in case you were wondering, we're not still living with my parents...

2 comments:

  1. Great blog post, Karen . . . especially the last line. Now, the pressure's on. Your followers will be expecting daily updates on you and the eccentric guy named Geoff.

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