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brinshannaraHave not been able to sleep.
I'm still wide awake. Very weird.
At any rate, my dad, brother and brother's GF are going up to the skihill today, and, probably to my brother's annoyance, I am driving. Mwahahaha. Apart from the lane changes, this will be fun, I am telling myself.
I do love skiing, and I ... huh. It's not one of my interests. <adds it> Right, and I miss skiing every single weekend like I did when I was younger. This will be only the... fifth? time this season. And it's already late February! For shame. (Once with my dad... once with my father and my brother and his GF... once with C&M, then last week with P, yes. My fifth.)
C and P were surprised I could ski so well. Well, P knew I could ski well, so she was less surprised, but she was still surprised that a hill that was "easy" for me was ridiculously hard for her. C was just incredulous. Mostly because I am not someone in good physical condition, and there are a few extra pounds I could stand to lose. I don't do a lot of physical stuff well, you see. But I can ski. And people look at me and sort of go "Yeah. Right. SHE can SKI? I don't think so."
And, okay, I'm not the best skier in the entire universe, and I do get scared on the harder runs, but I'm pretty damn good. I do enjoy demonstrating my ability to disbelievers. It's so much fun to show them not to judge people on their appearances.
And suddenly, I'm reminded of the Grade 10 trip to the Adirondacks we all took, when we hiked up a mountain and also paddled in canoes down a river. I was getting into the back of a canoe, and one of the more popular girls (somewhat athletic, too) turned and saw me doing so. "You can STERN?" she asked, amazed.
"Uh, yeah?"
"Seriously?!"
"I've been canoeing at my cottage since I was 7," I informed her, letting her do the math. I was 15 then, and had, therefore, spent more than half the summers of my life paddling around the lake up north or down the connecting river.
"Wow. So, like, you can stern!!"
Apparently, being able to "stern" (that's to say, steering a canoe while sitting in the back and paddling with enough force to propel it forwards) was something that a lot of my classmates had only recently learned during their short stays at camp over the summer.
To me, canoeing, like skiing, is just something I do. I know how to paddle, I know how to steer. I know how to parallel ski, I know how to do moguls. These abilities are just... ingrained in me, after hours and hours and hours and hours of practice over several years.
Sometimes, it amazes me that I can ski or that I can canoe, because learning how to do those things never really felt like work. But the burning muscles, the portaging, the sitting in a chalet to warm up... that's time, that's effort, that's energy I've put in. It feels good to look back and know that I've taken the time to develop these skills to the point where they don't FEEL like skills, where they're at the point like they just feel like they're a part of me.
I have no idea where all of this came from. I ramble, though, and there's some proof. ;) And now, I must get dressed for skiing. :D
I'm still wide awake. Very weird.
At any rate, my dad, brother and brother's GF are going up to the skihill today, and, probably to my brother's annoyance, I am driving. Mwahahaha. Apart from the lane changes, this will be fun, I am telling myself.
I do love skiing, and I ... huh. It's not one of my interests. <adds it> Right, and I miss skiing every single weekend like I did when I was younger. This will be only the... fifth? time this season. And it's already late February! For shame. (Once with my dad... once with my father and my brother and his GF... once with C&M, then last week with P, yes. My fifth.)
C and P were surprised I could ski so well. Well, P knew I could ski well, so she was less surprised, but she was still surprised that a hill that was "easy" for me was ridiculously hard for her. C was just incredulous. Mostly because I am not someone in good physical condition, and there are a few extra pounds I could stand to lose. I don't do a lot of physical stuff well, you see. But I can ski. And people look at me and sort of go "Yeah. Right. SHE can SKI? I don't think so."
And, okay, I'm not the best skier in the entire universe, and I do get scared on the harder runs, but I'm pretty damn good. I do enjoy demonstrating my ability to disbelievers. It's so much fun to show them not to judge people on their appearances.
And suddenly, I'm reminded of the Grade 10 trip to the Adirondacks we all took, when we hiked up a mountain and also paddled in canoes down a river. I was getting into the back of a canoe, and one of the more popular girls (somewhat athletic, too) turned and saw me doing so. "You can STERN?" she asked, amazed.
"Uh, yeah?"
"Seriously?!"
"I've been canoeing at my cottage since I was 7," I informed her, letting her do the math. I was 15 then, and had, therefore, spent more than half the summers of my life paddling around the lake up north or down the connecting river.
"Wow. So, like, you can stern!!"
Apparently, being able to "stern" (that's to say, steering a canoe while sitting in the back and paddling with enough force to propel it forwards) was something that a lot of my classmates had only recently learned during their short stays at camp over the summer.
To me, canoeing, like skiing, is just something I do. I know how to paddle, I know how to steer. I know how to parallel ski, I know how to do moguls. These abilities are just... ingrained in me, after hours and hours and hours and hours of practice over several years.
Sometimes, it amazes me that I can ski or that I can canoe, because learning how to do those things never really felt like work. But the burning muscles, the portaging, the sitting in a chalet to warm up... that's time, that's effort, that's energy I've put in. It feels good to look back and know that I've taken the time to develop these skills to the point where they don't FEEL like skills, where they're at the point like they just feel like they're a part of me.
I have no idea where all of this came from. I ramble, though, and there's some proof. ;) And now, I must get dressed for skiing. :D
