Shribman: The bad helps you savor the epic

Epic days on the slopes are memory makers. (ZargonDesign)

The setting: Cervinia, in the Italian Alps
The time: Once upon a time, long, long ago
The characters: Brother Jeff and me
The circumstance: Relentless fog. Battleship-hard ice. Bitter cold. Difficult piste.
Stage directions: Ski downhill, you moron
Scene: Brother Dave paralyzed with fear. Brother Jeff impatient with Brother Dave.
Dialogue from Brother Jeff: Face it, Dave: You hate skiing.

* * *

OK, Brother Jeff was right. At that moment, I hated skiing.

Let’s race ahead several decades. I’m writing this column after a morning on the slopes of one of my favorite ski areas. It was after a day and a half of vicious rain, followed by freezing rain, followed by just plain freezing temperatures. But I had missed a day of skiing because of the rain, and I wasn’t going to miss the second day. I just wasn’t.

So I drove to the mountain. Placed my skis against the wall. Got into the line for my pass. Nearly froze to death. The wind distributed my skis and poles all over the ground. Froze some more. Got my ticket. Decided I hated skiing. What the hell was I doing here? Brother Jeff was in Florida. Smart boy.

That hatred for skiing persisted. The first run was a disaster. Frozen ruts on a green trail, one I had sped down in magnificent powder only weeks earlier. Flat light. Ungroomed terrain. Teeth chattering now, not so much from the cold as from the bumpy passage down the trail. I hated skiing.

Took a second run. Hated skiing even more. Went into the lodge. Did the unforgivable: Read my email for a while. Felt guilty. Hated myself even more than I hated skiing. Figured I had better go back out, for the sun was shining and maybe the frozen wasteland was becoming skiable.

So on to the third run. Hated it. But hated it a little bit less. Stayed on the sunny side, humming a song from Broadway in the 1930s, half-remembering the lyrics:

Grab your coat and grab your hat, baby
Leave your worries on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
On the sunny side of the street

But by actually directing my feet to the sunny side of the street, the old form started coming back. Back with a vengeance. Not so bad, I began to think. Nothing to hate out here. In fact: What’s not to like?
The rest of the day, I was singing a different tune. It was from the band Spiral Starecase, 1969. The second stanza goes like this:

Every day’s a new day in love with you
With each day comes a new way of loving you
Every time I kiss your lip my mind starts to wander
If all my dreams come true
I’ll be spending time with you

OK, so I wasn’t kissing any lips, but I was realizing that with every run comes a new way to love skiing. Sometimes a new way of hating it. But confirmation of the great axiom of Julius Erving, who once said that “being a professional is doing the things you love to do on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”

So there you have it. A love-hate relationship with the sport everybody — my wife, my kids, my friends, my colleagues, the editor of this column — thinks I just love. But I don’t just love it. I sometimes hate it.
Now that we have reached the season for spring skiing, I remember that I once hated that, too. Hated the slush. Compared it to mashed potatoes. Never had the right clothes. Once got a sunburn. Once vowed never to do it again.

But last spring I realized that I loved it. Loved the soft snow. Realized that — here comes another song lyric, thanks to Martha and the Vandellas — it doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as you are there. Had to admit that I kind of liked the feeling of the sun on my face. (That tells you that goggles were optional that day.) I had a really great ski day.

Usually at this point of a column I start a paragraph by saying, “The lesson here is…” Damned if I know what the lesson is. Except maybe there is one big lesson: On skis, as in life, there are good days and there are bad days. We measure our time, on skis as in life, on whether the good days outweigh the bad. That’s a complicated task for a sport that is weather-dependent, and where you can’t have great ski days unless you have terrible weather and bitter cold beforehand. On balance, the few bluebird days are worth the many gray days. Skiing is like that. So — and here once again you are discovering a life lesson in the unlikely venue of the back page of a regional ski magazine — is life.