My brother, Kyle, skied quickly ahead of me as we skied off of the chair. He stopped up ahead, out of the way of the people coming off the chair behind us. I slid to a stop behind him and pulled my goggles down over my eyes, turning the world a faint shade of yellow and blocking out the blue glare of the snow. Dad skied by and waved to us to follow, and the three of us took off down the mountain. This was a slope that I had skied many times before, and I laughed to myself as the wind whooshed by my nose and cheeks, the only parts of me that were left exposed to the sun and the weather. When I was skiing, it didn’t matter to me that my younger brother was ahead of me. I have never been competitive. It didn’t matter that my brother was better than me at all other sports. I have always been good at skiing. That was all that mattered to me.
And today our dad was going to take us on a double black diamond, the hardest, steepest run either of us had ever skied. It was one of those runs that had a sign at the top that read “Experts Only” in big, menacing letters, warning anyone who was the least bit afraid to take off their skis, pack them on their back, and hike back out of that place as fast as they could without anyone recognizing them. Kyle wasn’t even six years old then, and it might be reasonable to think that our father was crazy for taking him on a run like that at that age, but my dad was a ski instructor and both of us kids had been skiing almost before we knew how to walk. I was nine.
When we came to the top of the run, Dad stopped us and launched into one of his speeches about being careful, making good turns, taking it slow. “Whatever you do, don’t go too fast . . .” My dad loved this sort of thing, and he was also the reason why the two of us were already such good skiers. I have never seen my dad as happy as when he is skiing. Our passion for skiing is the one thing that we have in common, and has always been the thing that I do together with my father.
But now I listened with only half of an awareness, distracted by the steep slope below us. We stood on a ledge that dropped off into a hill of moguls that went straight down to the bottom, daring me to back out, daring me to let my fears get the bettor of me and turn back. Kyle, on the other hand, looked perfectly fine. He stood fidgeting as our dad went on, warning him to be careful. The thing about Kyle was that he wasn’t afraid of anything. When he little and our mom took him skiing in a baby carrier on her back, all he ever wanted to do was go faster, faster, faster. And later, when he started skiing on his own, we couldn’t get him to take a single turn the entire way down the mountain. He was like a speeding bullet, flying down the slope without thinking of anything but the speed. He loved speed. Which was the reason for this speech right now. Dad knew Kyle was crazy; we all did.
That is why, without any warning, Kyle suddenly took off down the double black diamond he had never skied before in his life. Dad and I watched in disbelief as he barreled down the first three moguls, caught the edge of his ski on the snow, and tumbled down a third of the slope. His skis left abandoned halfway up the hill, Kyle’s face appeared from behind a mogul, his goggles askew and his face covered in snow. He looked furious. My dad called down to Kyle to make sure he was okay, and took off after him. I stood at the top, taking deep breaths, left alone to face the mountain.
The first ledge was always what scared me most about a slope. I slid forwards to the edge so that the tips of my skis hung out over the ledge precariously. My heart beat against my ribs steadily, quickly, the adrenaline rising in my veins. I tipped my weight forwards, just a little, until I slid over the edge. Quickly, I dug the edges of my skis into the snow to come around the first mogul. I came to a slow stop, the slope seeming much less intimidating now that I had made it over the first challenge. Carefully, remembering everything that my dad had taught me about skiing moguls, I pushed off again with my poles, and, turning to face down the mountain, let myself fall down the mountain, guiding my skis around each mogul, gaining speed as I went on. It seemed like only a few moments, a slice out of my life, and then I was at the bottom.
Kyle and our dad were waiting at the bottom, an angry look on Kyle’s face, Dad beaming and congratulating me. I smiled, too, despite Kyle’s bad mood, and turned to look back up the mountain. It looked so high up, so steep, and yet not quite as menacing, not quite as impressive, as it had before. I had conquered the mountain. And the mountain had not quite conquered Kyle, but it had definitely scared some of the fearlessness out of him. He spent the rest of the day telling our dad that he hated him for letting him ski that, but I haven’t seen him barrel down the hill without making any turns since that day. The mountain taught him something that no one else ever could have. It taught him humbleness, and although it took him a while to get over his newfound fear, it made him a better skier in the end. And me, I have always and will always love to ski. That’s all that it is to me. Nothing more complicated than that. o
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