The body
It hadn’t been easy making a transition to being more proactive about my life, but little by little, I was gaining. It wasn’t all smooth-going, though, and life presented reminders of that.
As if I could forget that the world “out there” wasn’t always safe, as Dad had said, there was the body off the parking lot of our campus. A young local woman, walking home alone one night after her shift at a nearby factory. A “friendly” co-worker offered her a ride, then made it clear what he wanted. She refused. He killed her and dumped her body in the grass right off the parking lot. I had been out that evening and possibly even drove by that lot on my way home, about the same time he was doing that. Never get too comfortable with that outside world.
We can’t be friends anymore
On more mundane things, there were the challenges of friendships and dating. One of my few best friends in life, all through high school, still remained in touch with me. I deeply treasured that. We met one weekend to go skiing at a local slope. It was a disaster in the sense that despite my best efforts, I really couldn’t ski. I’d had no money for lessons, and unlike her, no older siblings to teach me. So when I careened down the slope, I was both a hazard and an embarrassment to her. Her only comment was that I was either the bravest person she’d ever known or the craziest. Based on her next visit to me at my campus cocoon, I suspect she felt the latter, especially since she would never be “free” to go skiing with me again.
Some time after that, she called to say she wanted to visit me at the Branch. I was excited to see her and to show off the campus buildings, which she’d never seen. She was attending a private art university across the state, so this was a little below her style. When she came in, I greeted her warmly. I was going to show her around, but she wanted to get right to the point, so we sat on a side table. Her point was that we could no longer continue our friendship. It just wasn’t going to work. She was dating a judge’s son, going to her art college, and moving in much different circles — translated, I think, as moving faster socially in circles that were way above my league. We no longer had anything in common, so we needed to go our separate ways.
At that moment in time, I was crushed. And the sting of that visit lingered for years. And years. I felt so…babyish. Immature. Less than. Thrown away. Blindsided. For sure, I hadn’t seen that coming. These days, I am not sure what I feel about her or that moment. Was she actually being honest and doing me a “kindness” by telling me to my face what she felt? So often, people, myself included, just disappear…ghost others. I’ll talk more about that later, though I will note that often my ghosting has been out of a sense of feeling “unsafe” in the relationship. But for her, the unspoken bottom line was “I wasn’t good enough for her anymore,” and that was that.
Always left behind by peers
This was going to be the beginning of the stream of reminders that I wasn’t “good enough” or that I was different. Many friends and relatives would be moving quickly into dating, marriages, and babies in the next few years, and I would be aware, yet again, that I was that aberrant freak of nature and was being left behind. Always “less mature” in my life than everyone else. But still, I would continue on for several more years trying desperately to catch up, keep up, be “as good as.”
Tired of the pursuit
As far as my boyfriend in the Navy, that was complicated. He was a true gentleman and always treated me well. I did like him, but I was afraid of getting too serious at this point. I wanted my own life.
Also, I kept hoping he would decide to only stay in for his 6 years, then get out and come back to town. But he was loving being out in the world, and I wasn’t sure his world and mine were going to mesh long-term.
And, the emotional drain on me of Dad’s obsessive pursuit made it difficult to feel a desire for any man, or even a relationship, much less the eventual demands of a true, mature sexual connection. I was attracted to my boyfriend. He was a gentle soul. But I was just sick of being pursued at home.
So while I wanted a boyfriend, I didn’t want the demands. I didn’t want to “have to do, or be, or whatever,” for anyone. I just wanted to do what I wanted to for a change. Not the makings for building a meaningful connection with anyone. So we kind of drifted apart at that point in life. There would be a revisiting of things at a later time.
Determined to succeed
In the meantime, still stung by the humiliating rejection of my former best friend, I made it my mission to figure out how to ski. As I said, I had no money for ski lessons. And no friend who could teach me. Friends? I barely had any, much less any that could ski, other than the one who left.
So, I did the only thing I could do…I learned to ski from a book!
There was a book I discovered called Ski GLM: The Fastest and Safest Way to Learn, by Morten Lund. GLM stood for the “Graduated Length Method.” And this was my key to success.
Up until that point, the standard way to learn to ski was to strap on six or seven-foot skis, then snowplow your way down the “bunny slope.” Snowplows are executed by pointing the front tips of your skis at each other, pushing the inner edges of each ski into the snow, and keeping the back ends wide apart. It was a good way to be in control, but not a way to ski down regular slopes.
I wanted to be able to beautifully carve my way through the snow with my skis tightly together, moving more like one ski as I swooped effortlessly between the steep moguls. At that point, I could do a snowplow and even figured out how to shift my weight from one ski to the other to execute turns. But I wanted the magic of “parallel skiing,” and it just escaped me. HOW did one go from a snowplow to beauty and grace?
That’s where the GLM book came in. The author explained that starting out with skis too long made it impossible for a beginner to control them, much less “feel” the right way to move them through the snow. And the longer skis meant you moved too quickly. He mentioned starting out with short skis, 2-3 feet in length, so you could focus on the movements. And the shorter the ski, the slower you moved down the hill. Then, as you got more comfortable, you could move up to longer and longer skis.
I found out that the local ski area had these short skis available to rent, so I was determined. But before I spent money on that, I tried it out at home. I made myself two short cardboard skis. And I put a layer of sandpaper on them where my feet needed to go, so the friction would be as if my feet were strapped to a set of skis with bindings.
I stood there and tried to move the skis. Nothing. Trying to push my skis against the linoleum with my full weight on them felt like trying to move a boulder. Nearly impossible.
Then, I don’t know what made me try this, but I hopped as I tried to turn the skis from one side to the other. Viola! That was the missing magic! When you want to turn on skis with both of them together, you bend your knees “into the hill” so your edges dig in, shift your weight onto the lower ski, and then “hop” the backs of the skis up a bit as you start the turn, so that they swing out. And it worked! I tried it again and again, and each time, I could “carve turns” with my cardboard skis against the kitchen floor.
Success!
So I went to the ski area, plunked down my money, and rented the shortest pair of skis they had. And again, it worked!!! I was even able to move from the bunny slope to riding the chair lift to the top of the mountain.
Now, to me, and I think many others, the most terrifying moment of skiing is getting off the chair lift. You have to quickly get up and slide out of the way without falling and looking like an idiot. If you fall, they have to stop the chairlift, and everyone is mad at you. But I mastered this, too!
At that point, all I needed to do was push off down the mountain…in spite of being terrified of heights. Yes, the second-most terrifying thing about skiing, once you get off the lift, is that first push down the slope. You’re standing at the top of a mountain that is high enough to let you see three states. And almost straight down vertically is a hillside booby-trapped with steep moguls. To get past that “minefield,” you have to be able to control your skis enough to quickly react as you pick your way through narrow paths around each one of them.
Part of me was frozen in terror. The other part knew that the only way down was “through.” I was going to have to just grit my teeth and shove off. Realizing that I could always do a “planned fall” to slow me down, I pushed off and held my breath.
But what I discovered was that the moment I started moving and focusing on where to point my skis, I forgot about my terror. Soon it was all about the exhilaration of carving a path across new snow, flying over moguls, and spraying the snow as I slid to a stop partway down. It became crisp air frosting my face, brilliant light, and the satisfaction at conquering fear. An intoxicating mix.
So the rule for skiing was to just grit my teeth and START. Dig in, dig deep, and refuse to fall unless I chose it in a controlled way. Just START.
The “GLM” way of life
In a lot of ways, that was the beginning of my approach to life. Start with “short skis.” Learn a few skills to be “good enough.” Then slowly start increasing the challenges – bunny slope to the easy slope. Then intermediate, and eventually maybe even a single diamond expert.
But the important thing was to get enough skills to start. Then deal with the rest as it came up. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to plan a life, but it was what I needed. And the delicious taste of my skiing success fed my confidence in other areas. And later, I even went on to teach my siblings and a few friends how to ski…with success. No one would ever make me feel like I was “less than” or not “grown up enough,” again.
NEVER free…
So that was no small jump forward for me. On the other hand, back at home, Dad, too, had discovered some new tactics. Because our house was now a longer ride for him to get to work, he left earlier in the mornings. He’d make his stop in each bedroom to say goodbye. And he would always take FOREVER in mine, making sure he could get in his groping before he left…
Soul Mosaic 
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