SUBURBIA I Ski, Therefore I Fall

BY TRACY BECKERMAN

I am not a terrible skier, but I am not a particularly good skier either. On the Official Learned-as-an-Adult Ski Scale, I fall somewhere between a 3-year-old on the bunny slopes and those beginner adults you see on the intermediate slopes with their arms flailing wildly and their faces frozen in an expression of sheer panic. Having skied for about 10 years now, I can usually manage to get down one of the lesser slopes without careening into either another skier or a tree. Therefore, I am at my best when there are neither other skiers nor trees in my path. And naturally, things can get a little dicey when I encounter both.

Such was the case when I hit the slopes this past weekend. I hadn’t been skiing in a while and for some reason, I was under the delusion that my limited ski skills had improved tenfold during my hiatus. Without a second thought, I hopped on the chairlift and skied over to one of the more advanced slopes.

This was probably my first mistake. When I got to the top of the trail, I realized the slope was not only steeper than I was used to, but it was also narrower. It was also much busier than the easier slopes I usually skied. As expert skiers whizzed by me, I wondered if I might be better off feigning an injury so I could get a ride down in a stretcher before I got an actual injury skiing off a cliff.

Unfortunately, as I stood there wondering if my will was up to date, I got caught up in a tide of teenage snowboarders who carried me over the edge of the slope. I managed to get about halfway down doing a combination of skiing and sliding and was actually beginning to believe I would make it down alive when all of a sudden, I came upon a wall of skiers. Apparently, this group thought it would be fun to ski down the mountain with arms linked, side by side, like some kind of special skiing Rockettes. This may, in fact, have been fun for them, but it created a bit of problem for me since I was going much faster than they were and there was no place for me to pass them. Since I couldn’t go through them and I couldn’t go over them, I did the only thing I could do: I tried to go around them. The good news was that I managed not to hit any of the people in the ski wall. The bad news was that I hit a tree instead. Did I mention I’m not very good at stopping, either? ulosity here, but it takes a pretty hefty scope to distinguish its ringed shape.

I guess I should thank that tree for jumping out in front of me like that and helping me stop. However, I think it might have been a softer impact had I slammed into a person rather than a tree.

Even if you don’t own a large enough telescope to show these celestial wonders, I hope you’ll at least seek out the unicorn. I suspect it’ll be the only one you ever see!

Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM

Somehow though, somewhat miraculously, I escaped from my tree altercation completely unscathed. As I plucked pine needles from my helmet and confirmed that I had no broken bones, I got back on the slope, which was now less steep and completely uncrowded, and skied down to the bottom.

When I arrived at the base, I ran into a friend who was headed for the chairlifts.

“Hey, is it a good ski day?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said, “But it’s a great day for careening into a tree.”

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www. tracybeckerman.com.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS