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Winter Sports and Love
When the person you love does not do the sport you love
by Heather Atwell
A good friend of mine met her husband online. It's a great twenty-first century sort of love story because not only did they meet online, fall in love and get married, but both of their respective exes, ex-wife and ex-boyfriend, met online, fell in love and got married to each other. Instead of Wife Swap, it was Ex Swap. (Did I just come up with an idea for a new reality tv series?) Their weddings were about three weeks apart and some of the guests attended both weddings.
The slight bump in the road for them was that my friend grew up playing outside in the snow and her new beau grew up in Florida.
Within one week of dating, my friend had introduced her future husband to cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, and après ski. He certainly looks like a rugged outdoorsman, but growing up in Florida did not give him many opportunities to develop his snow sport skills. Two years later in the winter sports arena, he looks like a fish out of water, though, he is flopping around less.
This past weekend, a group of us went for a cross country ski at Mountain Top Inn and Resort in Chittenden, Vermont. (The area is amazing, beautiful and breathtaking. Stay at the inn; go sledding and enjoy the winter wonderland experience). Three couples total, and of varying abilities, we booted up and headed toward the trails.
My friend's husband was wearing his "make sure she loves me for me sweater" that he wore on their second date. He bought it for one dollar from the Salvation Army. It is bright red and acrylic. Very bright red. And very acrylic, like maybe 100%. The rest of us had our sporty outdoor clothing, wind-proof, weather proof, sort of gear.
As we started skiing I realized we were actually skiing up hill, which is not always the case with cross country skiing. Often times, paths are mellow and meandering. But this was not our situation. And what goes up, must come down.
On my first descent, I thought, "Wow, am I glad that I grew up skiing because this is not so hard."
I don't think that is what my friend's husband was thinking.
As I waited at the bottom of the winding trail, I saw a red blur criss-crossing through the switchbacks.
I have to admit, we were all at the bottom, splitting our guts trying not to laugh because he looked so silly. I know that is mean, but when someone is skiing on cross county skis down hill and a little out of control, they can do stunts like fly up in the air backwards, throw their arms back and then land on their feet (or on their butts). It sort of looks like an expert slapstick comedy routine. Add the funny looking sweater and a hat that was two feet off his head, but suspended in the air the whole time (or so it seemed) and, it would have been impossible not to chuckle.
After the mishap of that first long descent, he really got the knack for it. So everything ended well, punctuated by a nice warm fire with beer and stew. But perhaps the happiest ending is that these two people found love despite ugly sweaters, winter sports and exes.
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