Do You Know What a Good Friend Is?
Year after year and still in love
Dear Beautiful People,
I just returned from an epic three days of skiing my legs into sticks of melted butter up at Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort in Vancouver, B.C. I’ve been going there for the past 12 or so years with my ski spouse, Kristin. I love it so much. The terrain is vast. There are undulating snow fields above the treelines and beautiful open bowls that remind me of Sahara deserts of snowy moguls. People travel there from all over the world, so many languages and accents. So many runs with the bumps Kristin and I live to ski. We stay at the Cascade Lodge which has two hot tubs and a pool and is walking distance to the gondolas. We have it down. Our routine is a fertile constraint of eat-ski-hot tub-eat-sleep, repeat, and we rock it.
And the views are, as the kids say, sick.
The last time we ripped down the bowls of Harmony was a weekend in March 2020, right before a pandemic arrived and shut the world down for a while. I almost didn’t go this year: covid worries, quarantine fears, a work commitment. But at the last minute, the work thing rescheduled and I wanted to go. Do you know what a good friend says after she’s already invited someone in your place? “Come, we’ll all squeeze in, it’ll be fun!”
Do you know what else a good friend does?
Drives you up every year, and puts your skis into the ski rack on top of her big car, while you handle the poles. A good friend is someone with an impeccable memory, who leads you all over the mountain, occasionally turning to ask, “Do you want to go up Excalibur and do that little bump run through the trees?,” and when you look at her blankly, a bit embarrassed/desperate because you should KNOW, so you nod as if you do, and your loving ski spouse laughs and says, “Of course you don’t know!” and points down the hill and leads the way—something she has been doing for all your years together—with not a fleck of impatience or judgment, not a note of “really, you don’t remember?”, like some of us might do 🙋🏻♀️—THAT’s a good friend.
This good friend smiles and nods when she hears me thunder away for the millionth time at HOW FUCKING BEAUTIFUL IT IS at the top of the lift, overlooking the open fields of Symphony Bowl, while running over her skis. Do you know what else a good friend is?
Someone who, when you announced years ago that there would be no wasting time in the lodge especially during lunch when the lift lines are short, and handed her three energy bars to pocket, readily agreed. Then, she showed you where to pee in the trees, how to blow a snot rocket, and that handfuls of snow are adequate hydration. No lodge, no problem. Now that’s a cool friend.
A good friend is also a challenging playmate; someone who pops out of the last groomed run at 4 pm when everyone’s legs are noodles and suggests a little mogul field, because WHY NOT? She knows you’ll follow her.
At the end of the day, a good friend sits with you in silence, after you decide to take the gondola down the last half of the mountain because it’s pissing rain and your ribs hurt from all those bumps—and without saying a word you are both purring in the euphoria of a day well spent, your body well-used, your spirit expanding and singing, feeling the freedom in the snowy semi-wilderness. Grateful for this freedom that not everyone in the world is so lucky to have.
A good friend is the kind of person who, after enjoying a boss day of skiing, stumbles into the condo and checks for news of the war in Ukraine because she can hold all things—nature, sport, recreation, global politics, human pain, war, fear. This good friend of mine can talk ski boots, news, business, movies, tell great stories, laugh easily, take things as they come.
As we rode up the lifts, I remembered this Gary Snyder haiku.
Range after range after range
year after year after year
I am still in love
Back at sea level, can I make a couple of recommendations?
Dancing in Odessa, by Ilya Kaminsky
Ilya Kaminsky is a Ukrainian-born poet living in the States. I dare you to read this book of poems and not cry. So beautiful, so profound. It pushes all those soft vulnerable human soft spots. I think we all see a bit of ourselves in his work.
Run for Ukraine
Orca Running Company blows my mind Whistler-style in how they create community through running, and support timely causes. I signed up will you join me? You do this run on your own time. Pick your distance. No training required. Run, walk, mix, meld. So easy. Grab a friend.
FINDING BEAUTY IN A TROUBLED WORLD
I’m going to offer this salon in April, as a way to dive deeper and discuss the confusion and reckoning, the guilt and helplessness we can feel when, say, Here I am skiing blissfully on a Monday while across the globe people are being bombed and fleeing their homes. Or: How do I even carry on when climate change is looking so hopeless? We’re going to realistically and lovingly explore what it means to be a human during dark times, when everyone has such varying experiences. Email me if interested; more to come. tatyana@everydaycreatie.net xo
❤️
Beautiful!!!!