…and all the King’s men… couldn’t put Humpty back together again.
So they made scrambled eggs instead and talked about what a good guy Humpty was.
It’s time for me to make an omelette. In roughly 72 hours, I become Humpty, the King’s men, and the King incarnate. It’s time to reclaim and redefine what snowboarding means to me. It started as a thing I did, and I shared it with David. I shared it so much so that the act of snowboarding and what it meant to me was changed entirely to accommodate another human being. I’ve done this twice in my life with respect to snowboarding.
Once with Jackie when we first met and I expressed how important snowboarding was to me, and then with David. The challenge I am dealing with is in sharing this important part of me, I am giving up a piece of me to another person. And in both cases, those people have—well, for lack of a better term—abandoned me, and each time, snowboarding becomes more and more an undesirable activity for me.
(Note to Jackie: Please don’t think I am saying anything negative towards you. You and I have come a long way from where we were—it’s more along the lines that you now share my passion with somebody else, and it’s hard to not to think back to those days of walking up and down the Killington bunny slope in the sleet and freezing rain to try to get you ready for Utah. I’m very proud of how good you have become… it’s like a high school coach watching their all-star player go on to college, and the college coach gets all the net benefit of the fundamental work.)
Anyway I digress, but at the same time you can maybe get to see how “putting the pieces” back together is so challenging. A bunch of years back, after I had already accepted that I wasn’t going pro any time soon, I started losing interest in riding. I’ve always kept a house and always invited people up, but the days were mostly filled with groomers and way too many stops to ever really warm up. Getting out of the house took an hour too long—by the time you got to the lift ticket window, you thought twice about just waiting for the half-day pass that started in 45 minutes.
All in all, I was just riding with very recreational snow people. These were made up of my closest friends, and so I put aside my drive to spend more time with the people who, off-snow, were very near and dear to me.
When David finally showed interest in riding, something was lit in me. He progressed so quickly, which was not a surprise to me… I mean, he is my little brother. But all of a sudden, he and I could be out the door, have eaten breakfast, and next thing you know we are waiting for the lifts to start.
Our runs would include steep tree-infested, knee-deep powder, and when I went to the park, I would attempt a few more things and film him working some of the bigger features. We’d get home later and watch the video, then talk about where to shift your weight or how to hold your rotation.
All of a sudden, riding was riding again. We’d find the cheapest hotel, a cheaper car, and a temporary gym pass, and would just let it happen.
I am honestly fearful of strapping into my bindings in a few days because in doing so, I almost feel as if I am cheating my little brother out of a ride, and moreover I am no longer pushed to play “one-up” or coach—there’s really no reason to test the limits a little more.
I mean, in the end, why do we do a trick? Is a double backflip off a cliff even worth doing if there is nobody there to see it? It could be argued both ways, but in the end there’s the enjoyment of riding, but there is also the sheer pleasure of seeing somebody try something and either pull it off or crash and burn. Either way, it pushes you to try a little harder, or try to figure out where something went right or wrong.
So here we stand at the crossroads. Do we get back on the horse? Or do we just get a different horse? We’ll know for sure on Monday morning…
