Snow Planting

Jesse Peterman

Mid-January in Shevlin means only one thing: snowsports. I'm four years old, and my parents decide to celebrate by teaching me how to ski. Being old friends of the resort manager, my parents are thrilled to get an opportunity to get a discount on an all day family pass. Standing atop the bunny hill (the easiest run, almost exclusively used for lessons and practice), strapped to skis for the first time and uneasy on my feet, my dad skis backwards in front of me, carefully instructing me in turns, how to stop, and how to avoid getting hurt. My sisters fly past us, followed shortly by my mom, who hasn’t skied since before she was pregnant with Anna (oldest daughter, ten years old). Megan has zero sense of selfpreservation (middle daughter, six years old), and is giving LeAnn a run for her money (mom, thirty-five years old, from Nebraska). Nearing the bottom of the bunny hill, I’m doing so far so good, but lessons are often taught without warning. My dad (Jeff, thirty-six years old, chronic thrill-seeker) looks behind to check on the girls, and I learn that you can have your skis on too wide of an angle. Pivoting forward like a cartoon character, my face impacts the soft powder, knocking up a puff of powder snow as I dig for solid ground. I’m equal parts shocked and confused. Jeff plucks me out of the snow and rights me, doing his best not to laugh at the snow stuck to my eyebrows. I want to cry, give up and do something else, go into the chalet and warm up. But my dad gives me his sage advice.

“It’s just pain, you’ve had it before, it’ll go away.”

Neither of us have any idea how much this will stick, like planting a seed you don’t expect to sprout.

***

Freshman year of high school is always nerve-wracking, doubly so if it’s the first time you’re actually going to school. Up until this point I was home-schooled, and not at all enthusiastic about it. The first semester was a blur of getting used to structured classes and figuring out if I care about friends. We’ve just moved back to Minnesota from Wisconsin and I’m still mourning the loss of my old friends. Winter break is just around the corner, and a class ski trip is being planned. I don’t want to go, but Jeff hears the discount and is immediately on board. However, he needs to go as a parent, so I’m his ticket in. Bribing me with lunch and a new game for my Nintendo DS (digital adrenaline is good enough for me), I agree to go. Standing atop the hill on discount rental equipment, next to my dad, I couldn’t be less cool. My dad, on the other hand, is one of the only parents on the hill as the rest opt to watch from the chalet and gossip.

The first run goes off without a hitch, and we soon are approached by a group from my geography class. Opting to “let me ski with my friends” Jeff disappears down the nearest run, a gray and blue blur compared to the teens and tweens on the hill. His display of sheer speed impresses the group (they’ve got normal parents), and they introduce themselves. The ringleader of the bunch is Cally, a computer whiz with rustic interests. Luke is a little unhinged and just down for whatever, and David is the weird kid with the bowl cut that couldn’t care what people think about him. I round out the quartet and we make for the hill, Cally and David in front, and Luke and I following at a more leisurely pace. One of the seniors on the run takes a jump and doesn’t stick the landing, which just happens to be in front of me. I try to stop and end up in a tangle of limbs and fiberglass, face down in the snow. Trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, I get untangled and try to catch up to my new friends. I’m sore and there’s snow in my gloves, but I’m thrilled to have friends. ***

Twenty-two isn’t much like how Taylor Swift says it’ll be, but with her encouragement in the air, I’m standing at the top of a hill with friends I’ve not seen since high school. Cally and Luke (I think, honestly this part’s fuzzy) are standing next to me on skis, waiting as I fumble with the bindings on an unfamiliar pair of boots. Normally, I’d be between them as we bombed the nostalgic run, joking as we blur past trees, obstacles, and who knows what else. This time though, I’m on a snowboard, and about to learn why you always see them wearing helmets. This might be my first time on one, but after a few runs down a bunny hill, I’ve gathered enough hubris to try a green circle (it’s the easiest full-sized run). I stand, and we’re off, my friends passing me in short order as I struggle to stay upright. An unexpected lump makes my face meet the snow like I’ve stepped on a banana peel in a cartoon. Thump. The world is spinning as I look at the near-perfect indent of my face in the frosty hillside. I give a hasty thumbs-up to let my buddies know I’m okay, before getting back on my board, a little more careful of invisible bumps. My dad’s wisdom echoes in my head as I feel pins and needles in my leg. It’s just pain, I’ve had it before, it’ll go away. ***

A few runs later, and I’ve once again hit critical mass for hubris. This time we’re on a blue square (medium difficulty), which I’m confident on, you know, like a fool. We’re swooshing down this hill, and I’m dumb enough to try to keep pace with my adrenaline connoisseur friends. Turns out, going fast makes balancing a waxed fiberglass board on an uneven ice sheet more difficult. I’ll never be sure what happens next, but I’m flying through the air, almost in line with the run’s angle, and my face is on a collision course with a rapid series of lumps commonly known as moguls, though I’m sure the proper name will soon be my grave. Impact. My spine cracks like a glowstick, neon pain spreading through me. I tumble a few times, the moguls making me pinball between them. I obstinately get back up, resolved to keep going. The seeds of determination watered with effort, pushing towards the surface as I make it to the bottom of the run before my back gives out. ***

The next time I go snowboarding is with my dad, and while most of the day is spent flopping onto our sides or eating it trying to get off the lift, we decide we’ve had enough of the slower runs and pool our collective overconfidence into the worst decision of the day: a black diamond run (that’s like the hard or expert level). Standing at the top as we tighten the bindings on our rental boots and boards, I muse to my dad that I’ve almost spent the cost of buying my own set in rentals. He laughs in that single-drawn-out-breath kind of way that you can tell is half-forced, then mumbles something under his breath about Christmas coming up. The black diamond we’ve chosen is ominously named “The Chute” and given what I knew about the run when I’d been on my much more assured skis, should’ve been a clue to what was about to happen. It’s about a third of the way down another milder run when the branch left to The Chute happens, and honestly, I think a better name for the sheer drop they call a run would be “The Cliff” or maybe “Backbreaker Ridge” but these are both names I think of after. My dad is behind as I lean into the sudden drop; I imagine it looked like a looney toon the way I disappeared from his sight. Maybe ten feet down the incredibly steep wall of ice they call a run, my board catches on a groove carved by a previous victim of gravity and I’m once again face to face with the snow. I tumble down the rest of the run, flopping like a pancake in a waterfall, at some point my board comes loose and escapes my impression of a sideload washer-dryer and serenely glides to a stop near the upcoming rescue station. Mercifully, my end-over-end turns into a much more manageable log impression and finally I slide to a rest after the drop flattens back into another run, still a good hundred feet from the chair lift.

As I lay there dazed, dizzy, and battered, my dad slides up on his rental board like it’s a part of his body and helps me up, laughing in that ha-ha-ha-ooh kind of way you associate with watching those slapstick home videos of some unfortunate schmuck. Helmets, I decide, are a good idea. What we aren’t aware of, is the tears in my abdominal wall caused by all of the twisting I’ve been doing. It’s just pain, you’ve had it before, it’ll go away. In this case, only with surgery. Two months later I’m going under for my first surgery, equal parts nervous and tired, and hungrier than I thought I could be at seven in the morning. The surgeon introduces himself, but the anesthesiologist has already started the drip, and I’m out before I hear his name. A full week of recovery is required, and for once I’m thankful I dropped out of community college. It still hurts to do situps or carry anything heavy, but I’m assured that it’s just pain. I’ve had it before, and this time it really will go away. ***

This time, I’m wiser, more protected (see early remarks about helmets), and far, far, more cautious of the hubristic urge to go fast. Now standing at the peak of an unfamiliar black diamond in Lutsen (a pretty large ski resort in northeastern Minnesota), accompanied by the only true adrenaline junkie I’ve ever met: my dad. We share a conspiratorial glance, the overhead punk rock too loud to speak over, and dive down the sheer face. I’m on my single stretch of now familiar fiberglass composite, and the fifty-six-year-old source of my thrill-seeking behaviors on his twin composite strips. The run is wild and unruly, but I’ve earned, through pain and practice, a firm handle on the chaos below my heavy boots. Nearly halfway, I think, when the geriatric speed demon hollers like Goofy before diving out of my sight down a supposed shortcut he claimed to see. Just as I wonder whether or not to follow my foolhardy father’s trail, my mortal enemy strikes. Gravity finds an opening in my defenses in the form of a stealthy sheet of sheer ice and I once again experience my face matching pace with a hill’s angle. Twisting in now apprehensive panic, I imagine I avoid the worst of it as my face carves a deep groove into the mountainside. Tumbling at nearly-terminal speeds, I finally coast to a stop a good hundred feet down the hill. Taking a moment to collect myself, I groan with the knowledge that I’m not even halfway down the run, and it’s going to be a long, grueling ride to the bottom. My head’s spinning and there’s snow in my coat, but all I can think is, “I hope dad waits for me at the lift.”

***

It’s been a rough year since the last time Jeff and I have gotten to go skiing. It’s 2022 and we’re celebrating my twenty-fifth birthday. It’s a strange feeling to think that I’ve already been snowboarding for three years, but as we brace for the chair lift, we smile at each other in a way that says, “Don’t fall, I’ll finish laughing before I help you up.” My grandma, Jeff’s mom, has died since the last time we got to spend any time on a hill together. She was ninety-two, so it was no real surprise, but seeing him morn alongside his eight living siblings put a weight on the day. At this time, my dad’s fifty-seven. At the top of the hill, we take a selfie to send to the family group chat. The way he smiles here is so real, crow’s feet framing his bright eyes as I steady the camera. Jeff’s been more intentional about making time to talk lately, focusing on family and what’s going to be left when he dies. We used to joke about death all the time, now the jokes don’t land the same way. His brother passed, and two other siblings nearly followed this year, and you’d never know as I look at the photo, checking for imperfections. The photo’s good enough, and I stow my phone. I swear Jeff almost giggles as we finish tightening the boot bindings on our nearly-matching boards. Speed and pain-induced confidence make the first several runs blur by, intermittent with chatting, jokes, and comfortable silence between us.

We stop looking at the hill map and have fun on whatever difficulty run we end up on. We exchange high fives on the flatter parts and race around curves and bends. We break for dinner, the sun long gone by now. We take another selfie before our final set, the white hills and amber lights framing against the black sky behind us. I never send this one to the group chat though, this one’s for me. I’m leaving to study abroad for four months, and I want to keep something for myself. A few runs later and the hill announces it’ll be closing soon. We prep for our last two runs, the last more for getting up the hill to the chalet exit. Jeff takes the lead and I have a sneaking suspicion and an ache in my spine when I see the moguls waiting for their next victim. This time I’ll go a little slower and they won’t get me. Jeff’s not so wise to the idea, and I watch as he gets a little too much air off the top of one. He sticks to the landing a little too well. Flopping hard into the icy hillside, there’s an audible “oof” like a Roblox soundbite. I’m scrambling to make sure he’s okay, but as I approach he’s laughing about the noise he made. All I can do is laugh and offer him a hand up. Jeff winces as he stands, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. It’s just pain, I’ve had it before, it’ll go away. And for now, it has.

This summer, I’ll be diagnosed with PTSD and have to reckon with all of the pain I’ve been ignoring; genuinely believing that time can make it go away eventually. Through all these times planting my face into frozen hillsides, something is finally growing. A harvest of persistence and some as-of-yet unknown fruit begins to sprout.