The Turn Is Its Own Reward

     For me, skiing, snow, the mountains are a type of home.   They offer me constant opportunities to be present, to focus on feeling rather than thinking and to seek the harmony of moving with gravity.

     Skier levels are defined from 1 -10, with no one ever achieving Level 10.  There is always something more to learn.  Even Lindsay Vaughn must be somewhere between Level 9 and 10!

   At my peak, I was told I was a Level 6.  These days I prefer to avoid thinking about my level.  But I never stop trying to improve as a skier no matter what life or PD (Parkinson's Disease) throws my way because skiing is a labor of love.  It can be grace, beauty, JOY, love especially if I my body remembers how to do a skilled carving turn....even if it's on the simplest of runs.  It is as though I am falling into the arms of gravity.....dancing, not forcing anything.

There have been moments when I thought I had forgotten the skills I worked so hard to learn.  But I have never wanted to give up.  The sheer beauty, inherently possible, in each turn is more than
enough to motivate me.