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| AUTUMN IN WASCANA |
AUTUMN.
All the leaves are brown now and my caricature busking in Wascana is finis. Wintertime
is on my mind, and I am already dreaming of a white Christmas … and skiing.
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| ELWATER SKI RESORT, ALBERTA |
1972.
My first time ever on downhill skis was at WHITE TRACK SKI RESORT,
just north of Moose Jaw, SK, in BUFFALO POUND PROVINCIAL PARK. Later in
the ‘70s I moved to Kamloops, BC where I skied TOD MOUNTAIN (now called
“SUNPEAKS”), and HARPER MOUNTAIN, both within an hour of the
city, and also the ski resorts of SILVER STAR near Vernon, and BIG
WHITE near Kelowna. Those British Columbia years, I skied lots. And then I
moved back to Regina. But there is an old adage in the skier world, Where
you are is where it’s at, that I hadn’t really grasped when I moved.
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| WHITE TRACK IN THE '70S |
Residing
in Regina later in the ‘70s, I would board the Canadian Pacific Railway, being
served by uniformed conductor in a brass buttoned dark three-piece suit,
complete with a pocket watch and a ticket-punch, every Christmas season to ski
at Tod Mountain. (In fact, on one of those trips, I had the rarest pleasure of
dining with Canadian author, RUDY WEIBE, and his family! I was a
university student, English Literature major at the time What are the odds of
sharing stories and time over Christmas dinner with Rudy Weibe! But I digress …)
And
then came VIA RAIL replacing the old way, but not in a good way with no more
conductors, so I quit the train, and dabbled a bit on the local ski hill, the MISSION
RIDGE SKI RESORT, situated just one hour east of Regina. Mission Ridge which
was, and still is, the Qu’Appelle Valley escarpment falling toward Mission Lake.
There I skied for just one season until I arrogantly assumed that “Mission” was
beneath me (pun intended) and decided instead to travel west and ski the Rockies.
Not surprisingly, such ski dreams proved to be a lofty and delusional
enterprise, being severely limited due to time and even more so for money.
Then
fast forward to the ‘80s and ‘90s when my kids were in their pre-adolescent and
adolescent years. The Mission Ridge Ski Resort, being just an hour away at a
very affordable cost, became the ski resort of choice. Where we were was
where it was at, and this lasted until my kids grew into adults and
left to live elsewhere.
As
an adult skier, I learned that being present, learning to appreciate
where I was at, was an acquired skillset. In my early adulthood during the ‘60s
and ‘70s, I worked mainly on land surveys with the likes of the Department
of Highways out of Swift Current and Regina, Saskatchewan, and McWilliam,
Whyte, Gobel, and Associates out of Kamloops, British Columbia.
Being
on survey crews out of Swift Current and Regina became a rather perfunctory
experience. I would hold the rod, hold the tape, dig out the benchmark, run
along the ditch and atop the surface of the road, and hold the rod, hold the
tape, dig out the benchmark and run along the ditch and atop the surface of the
road.
And
being on survey crews out of Kamloops, too, became rather perfunctory. In the
forests I would chainsaw the line, hold the tape, hold the rod, scramble up the
mountainside, chainsaw the line, hold the tape, hold the rode, then scramble
down the mountainside.
And
when I say perfunctory, I mean after hundreds same ol’ same ol’ times, any
Zen moments, if ever there were, had faded. Working on the Saskatchewan road
tops at that time, I did not realize that the prairies were much more than
golden wheat fields. Never did I really soak in the unexpected landscapes, working
among the rattlesnakes and the prairie dogs in the Grasslands National Park, the
wild horses and eagles in the Cypress Hills, or the gulls and grebes in the
Thunder Creek Heritage Marshes. In such rich places, regretfully, my work performance
was but in cursory and mechanical fashion, a state of recklessness and
reactivity, and never like I said, a state of Zen.
And
when I was scrambling on the many mountainsides in British Columbia, including
the Noranda Mines near the Icefields along Columbia River north of Revelstoke, or
trekking among the berries and bears in the Coquihalla Valley near Hope, or stretching
a multiple survey shots along the golden shores of Shuswap Lake, I was not
emotionally mature enough to grab any Zen moments there either. Introspectively
speaking, I missed out on lots!
(Fortunately,
though, as the years swept by, while on vacation by locale and design, I did
get second and third chances to return and hike most of these places. Being
present now at such landscapes pays off emotionally, staving most of
the regrets of my not being present in the past.)
Finally
at 75 years of age, I awoke to the tintinnabulation of the bells, at long last realizing
that I need not the apex of any rocky mountain to arrive at any apex in my
life.
Factoid: Presently, I am a ski instructor Mission Ridge and loving it.
Another factoid: Being bound in golden handcuffs (so to speak), as a paid ski instructor seems the perfect drift into my old age. And it seems
rather fitting that in the summer of my adulthood I was a professional
swimming instructor, and now in the winter of my adulthood I am a professional downhill ski instructor!
WHERE YOU ARE IS WHERE IT’S AT!
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| MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT, SASKATCHEWAN |
I
know now that ATTITUDE BEATS ALTITUDE EVERY TIME!
*GRAB-BAG
CONCLUSION
Dear reader,
Where you are is where it’s at is a rather macro-Zen descriptor to
an appreciation one’s life, an expanse of certain Zen moments as experienced in
the art of mindfulness combined with psychology and philosophy and phenomenology.
For example, my philosophy of skiing, as expressed in this blog entry, could
indeed lend itself to be a kind of universal truth, a metaphor for the
appreciation of surroundings for one residing anywhere.
Saying this however, there are EXCEPTIONS to this ski adage.
Sometimes where you are is not the best place be. I know the difficulty of adjusting
one’s personal credentials (academic and social and vocational). I know the difficulty
of having to endure a place of employ (it’s practically impossible to appreciate
a crappy work experience, and that combined with the pragmatics of actually
resigning and moving to work and train elsewhere). I recognize the difficulty of
personal relationships (sometimes having to endure because of parental duties
and/or economics). And I know too, the difficulty of having to stay put and endure certain politics delivered by a certain government. But at the same time you must know that you’ve the power to exercise your right to vote and the power of just that one vote can help change your world!
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| VOTE BLUE |
