Column

I used to be a columnist for Inside/Outside Magazine, penning its With the Kids column. That is, until the magazine ceased publication in September of 2010.

Here is one of my favorites:

Ski Slopes and Aspirations

By Susan Oloier

You know what the cool thing about kids is? They learn to ski while they're dreaming. When I took my son skiing for the first time, his instructor, Sarah, introduced him to this idea. While I had never heard this theory, it reminded me of the mind's adaptation process - referred to as muscle memory - where a person learns a skill through repetition of the activity. An accomplished rock climber friend of ours encouraged this when climbing increasingly harder routes. I had used the principle when learning to drive a stick shift, and it worked. At four-and-a-half, Justin is more accustomed to dreaming of dragons, castles, and imaginative boy stuff. In the throes of beginner-ship, muscle memory is not something that interests him. But Sarah's comment prompted some thoughts of my own - that of dreams. I'm not talking REM's here. I mean the aspirations and hopes that we all have.


Our family is very much an outdoor one. We have skied, hiked, rock climbed, and even traveled the U.S. for a year visiting the national parks. When we had Justin - our oldest - we managed to incorporate him into our outdoor pursuits with relative ease. With Zane, who is now two, things are much more difficult. Zane was born with a condition that brings with it numerous physical and cognitive disabilities. This means that he probably will never ski, hike, rock climb, or do many of the outdoor activities that we enjoy. We are able to carry him on hikes and bring him along to climbs with shorter approaches, but downhill skiing is not an option right now. So my husband watched Zane for the day while I took Justin skiing for the first time.


As we sat in Murray's rental shop at Hesperus equipping Justin, we met up with a father/son team. The ten-year-old was going snowboarding for the first time. He wasn't taking a formal lesson. Instead, his dad was going to teach him. The father, an experienced snowboarder, was collecting his own rental gear. He related with lament: "I sold all of my snowboarding gear when I had kids." When I heard this, I could relate in many ways. When we have children, we often see in our mind's eye the melting away of the past life over which we must grieve. A life of scaling 14,000 footers on a whim, weekends of multi-pitch climbing, and plunging down black diamonds slowly peels away and is replaced with a more mild form of the outdoors: one that includes our children.


So as I looked across the midway at the La Platas, I considered dreams. Since moving to Colorado, I had looked jealously at others shooshing down the slopes at Purgatory as we headed north to Silverton or eased up on the accelerator while topping Hesperus Hill on the way to southeast Utah, not knowing how to incorporate our two little ones into a life of skiing. But on this day, we made the first steps toward becoming a skiing family, toward influencing our outdoor dreams. Granted, one half of our family was missing, but that was not the point. We were in the process of making the dream a reality and bringing it under our control instead of ditching it. Justin was taking his first lesson, so he was well on his way. And, unlike me, he is starting at an early age. If he enjoys the experience, he will far surpass me on the slopes someday. Since I am more of a green-blue-run type of skier, it is possible that even Zane can ski with me when he is old enough to participate in Adaptive Sports.


As I rode the chairlift with Justin, observing his innocence and impressionable mind, I realized that he has a whole life of dreams ahead of him to pursue, and I want them to include the outdoors. We, as parents, have such a huge impact on our children. If we model reading for them, they will become readers. If we model good manners, they will have those, too. So why not the outdoors? Instead of selling our outdoor gear at a garage sale, we should keep it and find a way to make it fit into our newly-created dreams.


After a two-hour lesson and three runs down Show Off, Justin was ready to go home. I could have stayed until closing, but to maintain a positive impression of the sport, I adapted to his needs. Fifteen minutes into the ride home, Justin displayed the tell-tale sign that he is tired: he started playing with his hair. Sure enough, he fell asleep shortly after that. I hope he was learning to ski in his dreams.