Turning of the Season a Time to Reflect

By Bob Berwyn, 12-22-07

	Caption: Solstice light in Summit County. Photo by Bob Berwyn

It’s the evening of the solstice and a light snow is sifting. It’s piling up on the fenceposts, indifferent to the building hustle and bustle of the holiday season here in the resortopolis of Summit County. My son is in bed, and I wonder if there are visions of sugarplums dancing through his head. I doubt it, since he’s never seen a sugarplum, and neither have I. Comet the dog curls up on top of my feet as I sit down on the couch and I know I’m pinned in place, at least for a few hours.

Just as well. I have a lot on my mind. For one, there’s all that fresh fluff outside. Half a foot at the local resorts, and we have plans to go and get some bright and early, before the Front Range day trippers wend their way up slushy I-70, thronging through the tunnel and into the fair environs of Colorado’s Playground. It’ll be busy tomorrow, but we’ll be making our last runs of the day even before the parking lots are completely full, getting our fill of freshies by the time the first ski school bell rings at 10 a.m.

It’s the solstice — the first day of winter — according to the calendar, a day of celebration for skiers and snowboarders, who cherish this season more than anyone, except maybe a few hardcore ice fishermen in Minnesota and Michigan.

No grumbling about ice and snow around here (well, except maybe from a few carpet-bagging, patent-leather-clad real estate brokers and developers, who believe their own Camelot BS about how it only snows at night, with sidewalks cleared in time for that first Starbucks foray).

There. How’s that for a gratuitous jab at the dark underbelly of the socio-economic reality of Colorado resort life?

I tried to hold back, I really did, but the sight of some Johnny-Come-Lately stepping out of his Escalade in Frisco this morning and wrinkling his nose at having to walk through a three-inch berm stayed with me all day. I just had to let it out.

Mountain people embrace the snow. They relish it and thrive on it, judging the day’s ski conditions by how easily the newly fallen skein of crystals slides off the deck under the deft touch of a wide-blade shovel.

Snow is good, snow is slippery, snow is life.

It’s the solstice, and winter has draped its frozen, vaporous fingers over the land. Cold and still under a papery silver moon, the mountains stand eternal. The lights of our little village flicker like embers in the velvety blue-black of this first night of winter.

Regardless of what the calendar says, this day has always been the start of a new year in my mind, when the sun and Earth begin another phase of their delicate dance, both a beginning and an end. As such, it’s always been a time to take stock, accounting for the good, the bad and the ugly. And as always, I prefer to do it through the prism of skiing.

And why not? This sport, with all its ups and downs, has to be a near-perfect metaphor for life. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing through a clean slate of unbroken powder, and you’re free to write your own script.

Sometimes it’s a chunky mess, when your tracks get lost among so many others and it’s tough to know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And sometimes you have to break through the crust to get to the good stuff.

Sometimes it’s a tough uphill slog, breaking trail through unknown territory. The only reason you keep going is because you know there’s a summit up ahead where your heart will stop racing and you can catch your breath.

Sometimes you’re whooping it up with good friends and life is a party.

Sometimes you’re alone. The stillness and solitude among the moss-draped spruce and firs is thrilling, almost overwhelming, and, in the end, comforting.

That’s how I ended up today. After skiing a few runs with a Summit Daily News colleague to test a new helmet cam, I slipped off into a quiet glade and parked it near a stump. A few inches of fresh atop a fine base made for slinky turns through the trees at Breckenridge. I was alone with my thoughts for the first time in a few weeks, and reflected back on the four seasons.

It’s been a doozy. You’d think after a half-century on this blue-green marble, I’d have it figured out. Not quite — sometimes I still wonder if I’m going uphill or if I’ve reached the crest and started that long slide toward oblivion.

It takes a few deep gulps of frosty air and watching my breath escape in puffs of steam to realize once again that it’s neither — it’s all just part of same wheel that keeps on turning, from darkness to light to darkness and back to light.

I’ve been down a long road this year, with many twists and turns. Got lost along the way and hurt some of the people closest to me, as bitter seeds of grief rooted and grew into loneliness, resentment, selfishness and pain.

Found a lover and a friend who helped me prune those choking weeds and replant my garden with hope, kindness, generosity and faith. I plan to nurture it through the chilly days ahead, looking forward to the blossoms and hopefully harvesting the fruit.

It’s the solstice. The sun will rise tomorrow and the next day and the next, each just a bit longer and brighter than the one before. Snows will fall and melt. Rivers will freeze, thaw and swell, then tumble through the valleys to the sea. New life will take hold out of the icy ground.

Love will grow, sweet and tender.