I got bitten by a snake recently.  I mean not an actual snake.  A metaphorical snake.  The last entry should have convinced people that I stay as far away from snakes as possible.  There’s a reason I live in New England and not Florida, top of the list being that encountering snakes really isn’t on the top of things that I do on a regular basis.

But back to the metaphorical snake.  It’s coming up on six years since I stood outside my house, waiting for a Lyft, that never actually came to take me on my ski trip.  This fateful occurrence brought the local institution known as Fred into my life and led to nothing short of a miracle.  I now have a driver’s license.  My friends all joked that the only reason I got a driver’s license was so I could drive to different ski places and they aren’t wrong.

I discovered recently that there is a very small ski area near me called Blue Hills.  They have an area for people to learn in and two trails.  Yup.  Count em.  TWO.  But when I went there for the first time, I wasn’t disappointed.  Rather I could not get over that this place is 15 minutes from my house and I could just go back to my own home at the end of the ski day, rather than going four hours by bus.  

So off I went on a random Tuesday to just ski for the day.  And that’s where the snake bite came in.  I felt a bit of a cold coming on but I ignored it and went off to ski despite that.  Boy was this a mistake.  My body made me pay the price.  The next day for the first time in as many years, I was laid up with a very nasty cold.  I slept for two full days and truth be told, am still not 100% back to normal.  As I sat in my bed for those 48 hours, I started thinking WHY I go skiing.  I had a lot of time on my hands and well, there are only so many cat videos I can watch.

I tend to go through phases where I watch the same movie over and over and one movie I’ve watched again and again is called 16 Days of Glory.  It’s a four hour movie about the 1984 Olympics, which in my opinion were the best Olympics.  I have no empirical basis for this.  It’s just kinda true.

Maybe there was something significant about 1984. It was the first year that I could remember very clearly. It was the year I started gymnastics, a sport that continues to fascinate me to an almost annoying degree. Annoying to other people that is. The Olympics has so much glitz and glamour attached to it now, but in 1984, it was still small. Still humble. The uniforms were simple, the athletes almost normal people. Now everything is so shiny and everyone so superhuman.

The movie doesn’t just profile the winners or people who do the marque sports in Olympics.  There are people from countries that don’t get a lot of attention for their sports in their countries.  It’s undoubtedly the story of people who are world class at their chosen sport but the movie also shows them with their families, at rest and going through the emotions of sport.  

What always struck me about the movie was how it focuses on people who don’t necessarily win.  There are plenty of winners in the movie but there are also people who don’t win.  They feature Mary Lou Retton, who won her competition, but also Henry Marsh, a steeplechaser considered one of the best who had ever done the sport, who finished just off the podium in 1984.  It also features the rise of countries that are now athletic powers, like China.  In one of the most beautiful parts of the movie, they show Peter Vidmar, a young member of the US gymnastics team who competed against Kōji Gushiken in the individual all around.  Vidmar shows this extreme respect for Gushiken, his competitor who ultimately beats him.  These are two athletes at the top of their sports who showed pure sportsmanship.  

There are plenty of people featured who were former champions who face problems.  Dave Moorcroft, a middle distance runner who held a world record holder, faces injuries and finishes last in his race.  You can see the anguish on the guy’s face.  There are people who are almost superhuman. They profile a German swimmer named Michael Gross who really does not look human. His arm span is longer than he is tall and at 6 foot 7 inches, this is something. He is portrayed as this Teutonic swimming machine but he too shows tremendous sportsmanship towards his competitors. Human and super human at the same time.

There are so many athletes in the movie that do sports for the pure love of it.  To so many of them, it doesn’t seem about winning but about doing their best on the day.  Henry Marsh, the steeplechaser, says that no matter what pain you go through, competition fills you with a lifetime of memories and that you’re only a success if you get up again after you fall. Is sport all about triumphs and medals and glory or is it about the life lessons? Even the most storied of athletes don’t always win and probably learn more from their losses than their wins. For a person like me, who is not a competitive athlete, it is all about the joy. The beauty in the world.

The end of the movie is the most poignant.  The narrator says that the athletes had entered the arena, they had made the attempt and they had competed with honor.  And for these moments, there was beauty in the world.  Something about this struck me and has stuck with me.  As I lay in my bed for those days, I thought — I’m going to those mountains every weekend and I’m making the attempt.  

Every ride up the ski lift takes me to the top and every ride down is another attempt.  I don’t compete against anyone but myself.  I compete against runs in my memory that were better than the one I had just executed.  Or is this run better than the one I had executed before?  Is this today’s perfect run?  Did I learn something new today?  Did I execute better than I have in the past?  

With every run though, there is beauty in the world.  My favorite part of skiing is when the sun is behind me and I can see my own shadow.  How is this shadow doing this??? How is the shadow doing this beautiful movement?? For the moment I am doing this, there is beauty in the world.  

Through sport, we see the best of ourselves.  Walking through the ski resort, I feel less like a person who is there less for the beauty of the mountain than for the beauty of the sport.  I’m there swelled with pride that I came and I made the attempt.  My dream as a kid, as corny as this sounds and it’s plenty corny, was to win an Olympic gold medal and to hear the US national anthem playing in my honor.  How must that feel to experience that??

In October, when I cross the finish line of the Jimmy Fund half marathon, I live this on an extremely small scale.  Every year, I walk those 13 miles and I choke back tears when I cross the finish line.  This year, it was particularly meaningful, given that my father was ill and was helped immensely by Dana Farber cancer institute.  To me, it’s that moment where the anthem is played in my honor.  Except it’s usually a really loud pop song but to me, it’s the Olympics and that colorful medal that my fellow walkers receive is like an Olympic gold.  So many times, I am in intense physical pain when I cross that finish line where every step feels like needles in my feet. Then I cross the finish line and I cannot wait to do the whole thing again. And for that moment, there is beauty in the world.  

Here’s a sampling of the beautiful moments when I cross that finish line at the Jimmy Fund. That one where I am not wearing my medal is the first year I did the walk. 26.2 miles. I thought you had to sign up for the whole thing. So technically I did the Boston Marathon, but I walked it. Not bad for the 35 year old I was at the time. Am I standing atop the podium at the Olympics receiving my gold medal? No. Does it feel that way? Absolutely.

I think this way of thinking of sport is a function of rediscovering being an athlete at the age of 33, going on 34.  For the first few years of skiing, I kept wondering why I love this so much and no matter what, I never felt for one second that I hated skiing.  No matter how cold I was, how sore my feet were, no matter what kind of crazy, ungroomed trail I was on, I still loved it.  I mean maybe this plays into the slight distrust I have towards people, that I think I love skiing because I developed my skills alone for the most part.  I progressed at my own pace. I essentially taught myself how to ski. I continued to make the attempt and in my world, there was beauty.

For the moments when we make the attempt, there is beauty in the world.  Here are some beautiful shots I have gotten in my 14 years on skis.  Capturing beauty while there is beauty in the world from sport: