The skier starts at the top and aims toward the bottom. It’s a straight line, for those with no knowledge of the sport, one my teenage brother drew in a single, scathing streak that might have sliced cleanly through children and trees but instead skittered to a stop, in a parking lot, without incident. It was a miraculous first run.
Since then, we’ve all learned some tricks, including the turn. As novices, we were instructed to carve wide arcs. Even the expert, sports coverage reveals, carves her victory from a series of slim swivels.
The turn, it turns out, is the point. And not just for evading children and trees. Scraping will against gravity and edge against snow, the skier controls the pace, the rhythm, the joy of the descent.
This winter, I've been carving arcs into the rug with the castors of my desk chair. Some blustery afternoons, I brave a chill peak of vanilla, capped with hot fudge. Watching the slow swirl from top to bottom, I recapture, briefly, the joy of the descent.
