Midlife Meditation

From Eclipse Day last month: this is not the forehead of a young man. Old wounds are coming back to haunt me. Sixteen years ago, when I was a young man of 40, I drove up to Mt. Hood Meadows for a day of cross country skiing. I went alone, as I did for most of my adventures in those days. It was a beautiful January day, the sky clear, the snow powdery and not too slippery, just the way I like it, and as I clipped on my skis, I knew this was going to be a fine day. I had decided to start my workout at a different location than usual: rather than the single-wide mobile home that served as the Nordic lodge, I was parked at the main Meadows lodge that the chairlift started from. The trail down from the lodge to the easy track I had chosen for my warmup was a short hill, but as I said, I was feeling confident. Fifteen seconds into that run, I realized I was going much faster than I had expected. On top of that, I was going to have to execute a sharp turn at the bottom of the hill, a...

Some disclaimers: 1. We did not see this sign. This sign is in Vermont. We have never been skiing in Vermont. Yesterday we skied at Mt. Bachelor, though we were not  on  Mt. Bachelor. Mt. Bachelor is a downhill ski Mecca, and we are not downhill skiers. We do enjoy Nordic skiing, however, and at the foot of Mt. Bachelor is a network of Nordic trails extending for many miles. 2. We are not highly skilled Nordic skiers. I've been doing it since 2000, but only sporadically. The difficulty of getting to trails through quality powder (Mt. Hood's trails are usually either sloppy or icy, and Bachelor is a 3+ hour drive from Portland) means that by the time I find my skiing legs, the season's usually over. Amy has only been doing this for two years now, so she's even less experienced. 3. This was only our third time on skis this season--and also our last. We had a snow day in February, during which we were able to ski in our own neighborhood, and spent one day at Teacup La...