Knowing How to Fall - Part 2

Picking up where I left off in Knowing How to Fall, my gift of knowing how to fall has proved handy at protecting my head in falls (knock on wood, the substance my skull is made of).

It also made me a good skier, not a great skier mind you, but a good one, though I fantasized at one point in my life what would have happened if someone had put me on a pair of skis when I was 3 or 4.  Of course, that would have been someone else's monied life and not the one I'd been born into.  But fantasies are free and so I did indulge however briefly.

My adventures in skiing began when I was in my junior year of college while attending what would become James Madison University (the name changed--from Madison College to James Madison University--in my senior year).  The JMU campus is located in Harrisonburg, smack dab in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, which is situated between the Appalachian mountains to the east and Allegheny mountains to the west.  There's so much I could share with you about the geography, geology, topology, flora and fauna, and history of the area, much of which has to do with my ex-Y's thirst for knowledge, my love of trivia, and the fact that I nearly became a geology major, that I could no doubt wax eloquent blog after blog.  Suffice it to say, I am in the company of many when I say, "I find the area beautiful."

Knowing that JMU is surrounded by mountains you won't be surprised to learn that it's located just 20 minutes away from the modest slopes of Massanutten Mountain, a year-round resort.

I'd like to say I spent my college years skiing every winter, but that's not true.  I spent my college years taking 18 to 20 credit hours each semester, engaging in extra-curricular research (no, get your mind out of the gutter--I'm talking lab rats and such), and earning the funds to live (a special shout out to the Pell Grant program and low interest Stafford Loans, which allowed me to pay for my tuition and books).

It was my then boyfriend (ex-Y) who spent his college years skiing every winter.  He also took me skiing one day, depositing me on the beginner's slope after telling me how to snow plow.  (For the uninitiated, snow plowing is when you angle your skis so that the front tips are together and the back tips a far apart, forming a V.  This, combined with bending at the knees, shoulders facing down the slope, is the novice's way to slow down.)  Then, he left me there for four hours.  At the end of the four hours, he swished up beside me, cutting a dashing figure in the snow, grinned a shit-eating grin and asked me, "How'd you like it?"

I told him that I'd soon tired of the snow plowing and began doing everything I could remember from roller skating.  I was an avid roller skater as a kid, spending much of my time in search of new black pavement for the ultimate clip-on skate ride.  The one time I went ice skating with the ex-Y while in high school, I applied my roller skating knowledge.  As soon as I placed blade to ice, I skated, taking to it, despite my weak ankles, like a duck to water.  Meanwhile my strong, captain of the football and baseball teams boyfriend, clung to the sides, feet going this way and that.  We never skated after that... you can figure out for yourself why.  (Perhaps my obvious delight and amazement at our differing abilities, despite his proven athletic ability, contributed to that... you think?  So call me immature.  I was, after all, all of 17.)

Then, I explained, "I grew tired of that, put my skis parallel to each other, went into a crouch, and skied as fast as I could down the slope for the rest of the time."

"Why didn't you go to the intermediate slopes?" he asked, bewildered.

Why indeed?  "I had no idea what the slopes looked like or whether I had the ability to handle myself with the intermediate skiers.  I have never been skiing before!"  It would have been nice to have, you know, a knowledgeable friend along to assess my readiness.  Oh, say, someone like a boyfriend who skied his way through his winters in college.  (In all fairness, he didn't ski that much... maybe once a week when the weather conditions were right.)

About three or four years later, married, out of college, in debt, and while the ex-Y was in grad school and I was working one to four jobs at a time to support us, we rubbed whatever pennies we could together to get me skis (the ex-Y's were rentals, but my thin ankles and low-volume big feet demanded my own boots and so the decision was made to outfit me).  Then, we went skiing together for the first time.  Only this time we went to Vermont for a week.

On the first day, we found ourselves at the quaintest ski resort with a mechanical carriage that took skiers to some of the slopes and a pulley type system--rigged like the rope and handle used in water skiing--that pulled folk up to other slopes.  After convincing me to start off at an intermediate slope against my better judgment and the fear and panic evident on my face after one run, my ex-Y decided I should probably get skiing lessons.

Circled as we were around several instructors, they divided us into groups based on the skills we had mastered.  They went around the group asking, "What can you do?"  Starting with me.  I told them, and I ended up in the advanced group with people who'd been skiing from 4 to 7 years.  I neglected to tell them I had skied for all of 4 hours and 5 minutes.

I loved ski lessons.  The best part was watching what not to do and I had plenty of people to watch.  Knowing how to fall came in handy.  You see, I lacked fear (okay, I was afraid on that first run, but I later found this would be true every time I went skiing) and fear of falling is what held most of the other skiers back, the basis for their many bad skiing habits.  By being afraid, they were more likely to fall and perhaps being afraid of injury made them more likely to get injured.

Half way through the lesson, the instructor took us to the advanced slopes.  A feat my ex-Y was not inclined to believe until he tested me, taking me to the advanced (black diamond) slopes following lunch.  Needing to test me even further, later in the afternoon, when the sun was beginning to dip, he took me to a rather steep, narrow trail that was icy and icing over by the minute.  (A narrow trail meant there was less room for tracking back and forth across the slope to slow down and more need for parallel skiing and edging skills--that is, cutting the edges of one's skiis into the slope.)  The ice proved too thick for me to edge with my lighter weight and so I fell.  Purposefully.  And slid down hill on my back head first (going head first was not purposeful), laughing.  And that's where my ex-Y found me, laughing my head off at the bottom of the slope.  Heck, I was just happy I stayed on the slope and didn't go head first into the trees!

Confidence... yes, an over abundance of it can lead some of us to do ridiculously stupid and scary things (see motorcycle riding example in Knowing How to Fall), but it can also resort in someone skiing advanced slopes by their 6th hour of skiing.

There's a lesson here that can be applied to all areas of life.  And if you are scratching your head, allow me to show you the dots I've connected.

Every choice, no matter the arena, involves a conflict between competing needs.  All choices involve some sort of risk assessment.  In the skiing example, I was faced with a choice between the need to challenge myself (risking regret if I didn't try a sport that appealed to me) versus my need for safety (risking injury if I tried).  To choose to live life fully with zeal, to live a life without regret, trust in yourself and take risks of all sorts.  Step outside of your comfort zone.

Some of the bravest people I've known when it comes to taking physical risks or engaging in activities like public speaking ("According to national surveys, fear of public speaking ranks amont Americans' top dreads, surpassing fear of illness, fear of flying, fear of terrorism, and of the the fear of death itself.") will quake in their boots when it comes to taking interpersonal risks.  Perhaps because the risk/benefit analysis can be quite murky indeed, particularly when you factor in other people and their conflicting needs.  At those times, it may be best to choose the mistake you could best live with (tipping my hat to Quinn for that insight).

I have found most people to be, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, crazy-afraid of conflict with others.  (Sure, there are good reasons to avoid conflict at times; however, I think far too many people use the mere idea of that as a justification to avoid necessary conflict.  Conflict after all is normal and it carries with it the potential for greater understanding and therefore intimacy, a salve for the existential loneliness that is a product of our consciousness.)  And let's face it, there's a biological reason for our fear: anger and danger are close relatives, separated as they are by one letter.

But perhaps our fear of interpersonal conflict and taking interpersonal risks has more to do with a deeper fear: the fear of removing the various personas people hide behind--that is, the fear of being rejected for who we truly are even by people we've chosen to be in "committed" relationships with.  Maybe, in the end, it is just easier for some people to assume assumptions are fact rather than do the hard work of facing their fears. Convinced your thoughts are fact, and believing that your pain is more important than everyone else's pain, or not as deserving as other people's pain, can make for some juicy and damaging drama.

As you might imagine, I'm not very afraid of conflict or taking other interpersonal risks, and the fear I have in regard to conflict has has lessened over the years to that of a bit of trepidation mixed with the excitement of what I might learn (even when someone else sits down to have a "serious" talk with me).  What fears I have are not the basis of my decision whether or not to engage another in a situation that has the potential for conflict or to self disclose.  Indeed, I am far more afraid of not being true to myself, not living according to my highest values and what I've decided is the next right thing, which is more an art than a science that I apply with varying skill levels, than I am of any conflict with any person or in revealing my authentic, conflicted self.

I can't say this has made me popular, fond as people are of sweeping anything and everything under the nearest rug and of hearing what they want to hear.  (People steeped in their own childhood trauma dramas will hear drama even if there are reasonable alternate explanations for what they think they are seeing and why they might be feeling the way they are feeling.)

But life isn't a popularity contest either.  Don't take my word on it: this is what Mother Teresa had to say about the topic.

People are often unreasonable and self-centered, forgive them anyway. 

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives, be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you, be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous, be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow, do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough, give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.  It never was between you and them anyway.

If you value popularity and want to be popular, then say the things you think other people want to hear and do the things you think other people want you to do, and don't forget to pick your target audience and study them.  However, don't whine about what other people are doing to you or how other people are controlling your life because they're not.  You are.  When you turn yourself into a pretzel to ostensibly please others (when actually, you're trying to control others' perception of you versus showing the world who you really are), it's your choice.

Let me just say this: befriending your own shadow (facing your own demons and dragons) and taking risks to be authentic in human interaction is far less likely to get you dead than taking physical risks.

One of the things I've learned is that there is much to be experienced in life where we don't have a guide, where lessons cannot be learned in advance, where the learning is in the doing.  Just do it.  Take the fall.  Trust.  Don't trust me, trust your ability to not only survive whatever happens but also to thrive.

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Do the Next Right Thing t-shirt.