21. All downhill from here!

Time is not linear: this new year hooks into the new years before it. Luckily, I can only remember last year with clarity, when we woke up to our final day of a skiing holiday in Bulgaria. I had struggled with the skiing, partly due to ineptitude and partly to an unpleasant leg injury (a steam room burn in a country where health and safety standards were still in their infancy).

Going to the slopes on the first lift, when most of the other skiers were recovering from the night before, gave me the space and quiet I needed to master what seemed to come so easily to everyone else. My boys gave me some very basic but effective tutoring, and helped me to see how the fear in my head had stopped my body from being free enough to love the fast thrill of the downhill. With my young experts as excellent teachers, I got the hang of it. “Make like a snake on the downhill slope.” I recited over and over, my new motto, to shut out my boring, repressive brain from saying, “You’ll hurt yourself.”

I finally got it and had to prove it, so time after time I took the lift to the top and made the descent. That sick fear gone, even the more challenging parts of the run were possible. I knew I could trust myself to do anything, if only I could keep my bossy head from interfering. Perhaps because this hadn’t come easily, this old dog struggling to learn a new trick, the thrill of the new skill was exhilarating.

The snow sparkled in the sunlight: pink, golden, happy. The skis at last owned me. I listened to the noise they made on the snow, let my muscles work intuitively with them and relaxed into the sheer playful fun of the moment. It was an epiphany, and a triumph over self-doubt.

A year on, I take this memory as my metaphor. I stand at the summit, see the future spread out small in the valley below. I’m ready to push off and enjoy the challenge of the unknown with a hopeful heart. All I have to do is trust, be intuitive, have faith.

Are you with me now? Are you ready? There is motion beneath our feet. Faster and faster we are flying down the mountain, fearless and joyful. Cherish the moment, feel your heart leap, love the excitement of life as it is happening. Isn’t it wonderful?