The Hill
Sarah Eagen
Personal Narrative
Writers Workshop
The Hill
Picture this, a six-year pressing their pencil as hard as they could against a page as they scribbled back and forth, or picture a six-year-old spinning rapidly in a circle. You might be thinking, what kind of six year old would do that and I will tell you who, it was me. When I was younger I would do the most bizarre things to keep myself preoccupied. If you were lucky enough to watch me during these occasions, you would either think you were looking at an idiot or a mastermind. These bizarre things came out dull activities, and about seven years ago one of these situations arose. It took place on a frigid day in Upstate New York.
The car came to a halt, and I rushed out as the snow fell around me. I grabbed the poles from the back of the car while my father grabbed everything else. We walked up to the ski lodge where my family had been skiing for several years and sat our equipment down on a table. We changed into our ski boots, which took a lot of effort at my young age. The Song Mountain ski lodge was bustling with noise since a fresh layer of snow had landed the night before. Everyone couldn't wait to sink their skis into the fresh powder. I loved the powder as well, it was great for playing in and building forts with, although when it came to skiing it was not as exciting. The snow went up to my knees so I would end up getting trapped while walking through it. Once I was all suited up in my half a foot thick snow gear, I waddled out of the ski lodge with my boots thunking as I went. My dad was right behind me since I was not old enough to go out on my own yet. I snatched my skis and got geared up to get out on the hills.
It was the first run of the day so we started off on the kiddy hill. This was where the monotonous activity arose. I was dying to race down the trails on the big hill, but my father wanted me to take it one step at a time. As we got on the chair lift, I squirmed with so much anticipation that my dad had to grab onto the handlebar so he would not slide around. At the time I wanted everything instantly and the chair lift that I was on was the opposite of that. The chairlift took forever to get to the top of the kiddy hill since kids kept losing their skis or falling when they tried to get off. We finally got to the top and once I was off, I swiftly swerved around snowboarders tightening their bootstraps and a mother telling her child not to cry. I tried to get as much momentum as possible as I went down the kiddy hill so that I could easily keep going down past the lodge to the big chairlift. It took about twenty seconds to get down the kiddy hill, which I thought was a waste of time since it took an eternity for the chair lift to go up it. I skidded around the small and big lift sliding right into line, but I then had to scooch out of the way because my dad had not caught up with me yet.
As I waited, I watched as people got on the lift. The machine was perfectly in sync. The chair would whip around the outside of the rail where people would be waiting at the line for it to scoop them up. The next people in line would race to get in place so that they would not be left behind. This all happened in less than five seconds with no interruption. To most people it was easy to get on the chairlift, but for me, it was a nightmare. There were so many terrible possible outcomes. What happens if the chair does not slow down enough and I get sliced in half? What if I trip while trying to get to the line and get pushed over? My dad turned around the lift and stopped right next to me.
“Ready to go?” he asked
“Umm,” I said through my face mask. At that moment I rethought everything I wanted. Of course I had the burning desire to race down the mountain, but was it worth the risk if there was a chance I would get decapitated? I decided to push my thoughts and fears down and responded.
“Yes, let’s go”
“All right, let's do it,” he responded. We got into line behind a group of three other skiers, who had the structure of giant oak trees. The line shuffled along, and I watched as the group in front of us pushed as forcefully as they could after the chair in front of them. They waited for a second, and right on schedule the chair flew around the lift and scooped them up. You might think that Song Mountain is a resort, but it's not, the lift would not stop and let you get comfortable before it started moving. These lifts were as old as the hills and would barely stop when you pressed the emergency brake. They were rusted and broken down, and probably the first chair lifts ever invented. So, right as the skiers in front got scooped up, I dug into the ground as vigorously as I could with my tiny poles pushing as if my life depended on it. My father saw that I was behind, and grabbed the back of my jacket, pulling me up. I turned around just in time to see the chair flying at me. Was this the moment when I would die? Was the cereal I had for breakfast a good last meal? I reached up to grab the sidebar and jumped to get on, but I did not jump high enough. I thought it was over and that I was not going to make it on to the lift, but I was wrong. My dad, of course, knew that I could not get on myself, so he lifted me up and plopped me down right next to him. It all went by in a flash so I barely knew what had just happened. We swung into the air and headed up the mountain. I sank into the chair with relief and gripped my hands onto the safety bar as if they were stuck with glue. We slowly started to elevate off the ground.
As we moved away from the sounds of the lift line, I started to hear the sounds of the mountain: the wind whipping by my face, knocking the cold air against my tiny helmet; my head hitting the sidebar on the chairlift. The more I listened, the more I could hear: the trees brushing their limbs against each other and the churning of the gears in the chair lift. As I became more relaxed, I leaned forward and started to look around. I watched as skiers and snowboarders sped by on a nearby trail. I could see them slicing the snow with there edges. It looked like a little kid had dragged their finger along the top of a cake. I usually could hear their boards scraping the ice, but since the snow was so light all you could hear was the air. My one thought was to get my own chance at cutting up the snow.
I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky. The gray clouds against the pale blue background with sprinkles of white. I watched the symmetry of the snowflakes melt into droplets of water on my goggles. I could feel myself drifting away in the wind, then there was a sharp tap on my shoulder, pulling me back into the real world.
“We’re almost at the top. Make sure you’re set up to get off,” my father reminded me.
“Mm,” I responded in an almost animal-like sound.
“The lift comes in the blink of an eye,” he urged again.
“I know, I know, I know. I've got everything under control,” I answered hastily, but did I? I wanted to rip down the mountain but what if something went wrong while I was trying to get off the lift or when I was skiing?
Different images flashed by: me crashing into a tree, me crashing into a skier, me clipping my edge and tumbling all the way down the mountain. You might think all these situations are absurd, but they were not. They provided me with the worst possible outcomes so that I was not taken by surprise when things went wrong. I pushed them all down and assembled myself to get off. We got to the top, and as briskly as possible, I put my skis on the snow and shuffled off the chair and out of the way. Another one of my many fears was that I would not be able to get off the chair in time and it would hit me in the back of the head. Luckily that did not happen, I got out of the way just in time. I stopped right next to the head of all the trails, as did my father. I pointed to “Chopsticks♦” on the trail board and headed in the direction of the sign. I skied along the long stretch of snow that led to the crest of the hill and could feel my anticipation starting to rise, I was so close to what I wanted. I could imagine myself in the place of the skiers who had just passed me by on the lift, holding the edges of my skis and speeding down the mountain. As we got closer to the crest, I could see where the hill started to fall away.
I halted to a stop right where the ground dropped and looked out. There was a blanket of white over everything, it looked as if it was all covered, but still, more snow fell from the sky. The snow dropped like powdered sugar over french toast. I snapped out of the beautiful trance and dug my poles down at my side. I had waited so long, but now I was primed and prepared, so I gave a thumbs up to my dad and took off.
For the first second I was almost half in the air, and felt like a feather. My skis hit the ground and I took off, building momentum as I poured all my energy into accelerating. My speed kept the snow from landing on my jacket. My skies went through the snow so smoothly that I felt as if I was going through butter. The air was whizzing so quickly past me that if I was to have jumped, I think I could have started flying. When I turned my head I could barely see the skiers and woodland that I was passing. It all looked like a blur of browns, whites, with a couple smudges of fluorescent ski jackets. I was so transfixed in the blur of colors that I had forgotten my dad's advice of making zigzags down the mountain. All I could think about was surging towards the bottom. As I started getting closer, the ground looked like a wall moving towards me. I wanted to know why I could not hold on to this feeling forever, the feeling of being weightless while rushing through the most breathtaking and magnificent landscape. It was a priceless feeling, that even surpassed the taste of my beloved chocolate chip scones.
Then I hit the bottom and I instantly slowed down, but still glided through the snow. The trail flattened completely out ending right in front of the lift. The moment was over, and the sun had stopped shining as brightly.
All the time I put into getting there, getting dressed and getting my belongings put together at home, then having to drive thirty minutes in the car to get to the mountain. At that point we still had not even put on our gear yet, I still had to go down the kiddy hill and spend fifteen minutes going up the big chair lift. All the time I had spent to have the feeling that nothing could stop me, was only for thirty seconds. I would not have traded that feeling for the world. So I then pushed myself back into line to do it all over again.
