where the lyrics live

Boston was blanketed with six to ten inches of white fluffy snow. the kind you don't mind shoveling, it's not the usual back-breaking experience. Light and fluffy. Not the snow balls kind, and you couldn't make a snowman with the stuff if your life depended on it. Just good dry powder. No base. You'll cut right thru to dirt on the local ski hills so bring your early season board if staying local...but why would you do that.
Christopher called and asked if I knew how to ski...cross country. And I don't, but should, I replied.
Five years ago when Lesli and I bought our house from an elderly couple moving in with their son, they left behind many things they would never again use, like a snow blower and a set of cross country skis. My one attempt to use the skis two years ago didn't go well. Now it was time to try again and learn something new.
"It's like shuffling your feet down the school hall" Chris said. So we shuffled and I moved awkwardly for an hour and that led to another hour of less awkward movement. Then Les and I went out again yesterday, she on her snow shoes and I on Ben's skis. The waxless skis with the price tag still on them. $99 at MVP...almost like he was going to bring them back after the season for his money back. That was Ben. Thank you Ben. He was the elderly man I bought my house from.
So yesterday's less-awkward movement will lead into today's shuffling around the halls of the woods in perfect powder. I've now made a track in the woods and my technique is coming along. It's funny when learning a new sport or learning anything... Learning is a matter of a style, balance and effortless motion that needs to be learned, then honed to look as if it were instinctual.
When I learned to snowboard a long time ago, I took a flogging of epic proportions. The act of directing a plank of wood to the bottom of a hill with grace was painful. And also frustrating. A few friends were learning at the same time, back in 93 or 94. Brad and Allyson on Wha, o-Wachusett mountain on New Years Eve. They could go top to bottom, and top again and also lap me. This was my fourth attempt in two years at snowboarding, and then I got it. I felt like I was granted a super power. I could link three turns while strapped to a plank of wood! I earned my super power with many a bruised hip and swelled elbow and this technique was now mine. I owned it. To be permanently stored in my memory banks next to an untold number of song lyrics that I never wanted to learn in the first place. Funny how that works.