The coldest I’ve ever been while skiing, I wasn’t skiing. I was crying.
It was a New Year’s Eve day, and we were in Tahoe for the holidays with our four young kids.
How lucky! And enchanted! Did I mention that at the time we had two little boys and two little girls?? Symmetry! Everyone knows that’s one of the most pleasing things life can offer. We all love it in a face. We all love it in everything else too.
I’d gone to the mountain that morning to launch my younger daughter into a ski lesson she was not happy about taking. We have yet to raise a kid who at some young age hasn’t regarded a ski school check-in as a deepest betrayal, acting as if instead of paying exorbitantly for four hours of instruction to learn a fun and lifelong skill, we were selling them into child labor.
After forsaking my daughter, I’d planned to ski myself for a bit. To move and be distracted, or at the very least to get numb.
But after a few runs, I bumped into a friend at the merge of two trails and I stopped. And I stood. And I cried.
I got cold the way you do when you are no longer moving on a mountain. But it didn’t matter: my body was just a heartbreak container. And if I froze all the way through, I could probably just be put on a counter and defrosted. The heartbreak would thaw and be fresh as ever, and I could continue serving it to anyone who would or would not listen.
I’d reached a level of grief that made any kind of personal physical comfort feel superfluous. So what if I was cold? I didn’t care. What was the point of being warm anyway? I couldn’t feel my toes, but, if when I got home, they fell out in a sad little pile when I took off my boot: eh. Worse things happened all the time. Worse things had happened within the last hour.
While I stood statue still, my jacket buzzed constantly, and I knew without checking my phone it was a bunch of worse things. Little electrical shocks alerting me to the larger ones my son was having back at the cabin with our nanny.
So there I stood at the intersection of two runs for over an hour crying, as if this was the pastime I’d come for. As if I’d bought a lift ticket to be anything but lifted. As if my true double black diamond talent was sobbing.
The angle of the sun changed, shadows started casting, and I kept on crying.
Groups of skiers cycled past us. A party of alpine-untalented young adults picked their way past us for a second time, half of them in knit beanies, not helmets, spoiled by their good healthy brains, too dumb to protect something so precious. I hated them.
Impossibly small children bombed past us, heads burdened by technicolor protection because the adults in their lives were too smart; they knew what was at stake. But of course the kids didn’t. They were living like kids do, as if bad things never happened and the world was just a well-ordered playground stuffed with snacks and fully-charged ipads. They were just pizza-slicing bobble heads in cartoony bright snow suits, calling out to each other about who would get to the lift line first. They were adorable and having fun and I hated them too.
Parents coaxing more timid kids along with promises of hot chocolate in the lodge if they would for-the-love-of-god point their skis downhill and jesus-christ-just-try-a-little inched past us. I knew the shtick. I knew how annoying it could be. I’d reached points of such extraordinary impasse with young skiers that I’d sat down and thought I guess this is the hill I die on.
So I could fully relate. I’d been a parent just like this as recently as yesterday. And at the same time: I hated all of them too.
I hated everyone who could do what my son couldn’t. That year, my son could not ski for an avalanche of reasons: too cold out which meant bundling, and then of course bundling could lead to overheating once you exerted yourself, and too hot was also a big problem; uneven muscle control making him seem strong and capable one minute, and then at the mercy of gravity, the wind like an inflatable tube man on a used car lot the next; a comprehensive disregard for personal safety; extra long processing times that meant the distance between us yelling “PIZZA!” or “TURN!” and him doing either of these things would be too extended, and therefore dangerous for him and anyone else on the slope.
And then there was the problem of the date. December 31st had proven to me not once, but twice that it was not my friend. I knew the truth about New Year’s Eve day. It wasn’t some easy run up to champagne toasts and midnight kisses.
It was scary.
Over the years, I had previously and mistakenly categorized many of the New Year’s Eves of my life as real bummers, a hallmark of expecting too much out of any one thing.
I couldn’t even remember what I had done for the millennium New Year’s any more, the night we’d all braced for the world to stop working. But I could remember every beep of every machine at Boston Children’s on December 31, 2010 and Renown Hospital in Reno on December 31, 2011 as I braced for my son to stop working on the first two New Year’s Eves of his life.
I was maybe the only one on the mountain that day who knew this, but New Year’s Eve could really pull a fast one on you. And my son was back at the cabin having the kind of day that was making another fast one feel distinctly possible. A third strike. And everyone knows what comes after that.
This sounds more obvious than it is: you have to have hope to be hopeful. The act of hoping is itself hopeful. And on that day, on that mountain, I’d reached the end of the line with hope.
There was nothing more to try. My son was always going to have seizures throughout the day and night. He was always going to be stuck in a cabin. Things were always going to be this way. Or worse. Probably worse. In six months, would I look back on my crying self and think, “you didn’t even know…”
Mind you, none of this assessment was medically true — there were still things to try. But hopelessness can be so resolute, trading on extremes and blanket statements. And if it’s the case that we’re all only ever just telling ourselves a very long story, this felt true.
That’s why that day I told a friend I was done with hope. I told her I couldn’t hold it anymore. That hope was just another heavy thing, and if I had to keep climbing this mountain, I needed to lighten my load.
I was taking off my pack, putting it down and leaving hope at mid-mountain.
My friend didn’t try to talk me out of my bleakness. She let me build my little cairn of heartbreak and leave it there.
But when I wasn’t looking, she grabbed one little stone and put it in her pocket. And she said, “I am going to hope for you.”
Obviously, so many people who loved our family and our son were doing this already. Over so many hard years, we were so thoroughly rooted for; it kept us upright. But to hear my friend state this so plainly gave me a kind of permission that felt physically alleviating.
I was released from the expectations and burdens of hope. The energy still existed — and this felt important because I didn’t want my son’s case going unhoped for out there in the cosmos — but I no longer needed to be the generator.
And one year later, back in the mountains for brighter holidays, I saw my friend and got to say, “You were right to hope.”
Right now a banner hangs on a church not far from our house:
How does a weary world rejoice?
I don’t even know what religion goes on inside the building this hangs in front of. Though I sit at its intersection waiting for the light to turn green multiple times a week, that structure and everything else on the block is just visual white noise, a backdrop to my churning thoughts: I hope I remember to buy more peanut butter. I wonder if I should go off of tamoxifen. Is Travis Kelce the one?
So I have never noticed much about this church before. What color is it? I forget. Or I never knew. Does it have a parking lot? Seems damning not to, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. But now this banner, this question. It has flown behind a miniature airplane over the beach of my brain all day every day this past month.
How does a weary world rejoice?
How?
I gotta know. I wonder if I should find out what religion they’ve got in that church and get it. If I convert, will I get the answer?
Also, I wonder if the answer is structured as an actual how-to, like a step-by-step guide to rejoicing in challenging times.
Or are they just in there reflecting on the how of it all, an academic question of interest to debate, illuminating the ways it is unsolvable, a religious Reimann Hypothesis?
Can we predict the distribution of complex zeros and prime numbers?
Does the modern world, exhausted by itself, still allow for holiday happiness?
More: Can people who know what a new year can do to a person get excited about a new year?
At some point in my life, I stopped thinking about new years in a what-could-happen!, possibility-filled way, and started thinking about them in a what-could-happen?, trepidation-filled way. I blame the scar tissue of my past New Year’s Eves, but maybe this vantage is more just a fact of getting older, an awareness that years can get more complicated as they march on.
I wouldn’t have liked if someone had laid out 2023 for me in advance: Okay, so get this: we’re gonna start slow with just some standard passage of time stuff, but in April you’ll get a mammogram that will reveal in May that you have cancer that will necessitate surgery in June and mean no running in July and radiation in August right before your second kid leaves for college and starting hormonally-upheaving tamoxifen in September, followed by a seizure for your youngest in October. And then, you will get November off!
I wouldn’t have wanted to do any of that. Even with the break in November.
And the sound of all that coming would’ve been more daunting than actually going through it month by month.
Which is why I don’t like projecting too much about 2024. Historical data suggests that in the coming year, beautiful things will happen and also that shit will go down. In what order, at what velocity, Richter scale rating: all unknown.
The only resolution left is to trust that come what may in 2024, I’ll find the resolve to get through it. Just like I did last year. Just like you did too — because as evidenced by you sitting there reading this newsletter with your working eyeballs and beating heart, you also made it through the year.
It might not have been pretty or easy, but we did.
Okay, the truth is I probably don’t need to convert to a new religion to get a step-by-step guide to rejoicing. And now you don’t either.
My youngest has a whole set of holiday best practices that consistently and reliably bring joy, and as a holiday gift to you, I am going to share them here. With two disclaimers: 1) rejoicing is definitely easier when you are not world-weary. I’m not suggesting you should stop watching or reading the news, but I am telling you your results may not be as extraordinary as my son’s given his pure state. 2) this guide is Christmas-based, but the basic tenets can be applied across religions ie no doubt were my son Jewish, he’d talk and sing to our menorah, etc.
And now…
How to Rejoice:
Talk to all yard inflatables you drive past like you just bumped into them at a cocktail party. “Hey, Santa, how’s your work job going in the North Pole?” “Hey, Polar Bears, wanna hear a knock-knock?”
Talk to your Christmas Tree. Name one other person in your life who quietly stands all day uncomplaining, guards all your gifts and lights up just for you every night. It’s time to give back. Engage.
Branch out: sing to your Christmas Tree.
Talk to your Elf on the Shelf. He’s exhausted. Those nightly flights back and forth to the North Pole? At this time of year?? Whatta grind! That’s why sometimes he gets back to your house while you’re sleeping and just sits in the same spot as yesterday. He’s spent, weary, out of new ideas — like so many of us. Connect. Let him know he’s not alone, that you see his effort.
Wear a Christmas sweater every day. They literally go with EVERYTHING.
Run in place rapidly, flash-dance style saying, “I’MSOEXCITEDI’MSOEXCITEDI’MSOEXCITED!” Tell anyone around you to do the same. Don’t rest until they do. Here, people of certain ages might say they can’t because they’re sitting. Ridiculous! So often changing circumstances is just a matter of a little effort. Make them stand, make them move.
Focus on your personal standing on the nice list. Pour your energy into avoiding naughty behavior, and if that fails, reframe the behavior as feeling “a little grumpy.” You’ve never heard of Santa penalizing for grumpiness.
Assume when your parents get dressed up for each holiday party that they are going off to get married! Over and over again! Love!
Regularly declare as many non-controversial, undeniably true things as possible. “There’s nothing like a good cup of hot cocoa on a cold day.” “This is the season we’ve been waiting for.” “I love you and Christmas.”
Invite liberally. Your teachers, this cashier, that kid at the park — any and all of them might like to join your family holiday. Santa can just bring their presents to your house! So be expansive. It is the exact right time of year: make it the more, so it can be the merrier.
Talk nonstop about about skiing over the holidays, because this year, you will go. And you might get a little too cold, or a little too hot, but it will be fine. And when your family yells “PIZZA!” you’ll react right away and triangle your skis and lean in with your strong legs and you’ll slow down because you need to and you’ll keep safe. And, sure: you’ll see the disparity between your skills and those of the other kids who skied all those younger years of yours that you had to sit in a cabin. Say, “I’m not very good at skiing,” but listen to your family when they tell you that that’s not it; it’s that you are a Beginner. And there’s nothing wrong with and everything right about beginning.
Again.
It’s all we can do.
To new and glorious morns,
Jen.
Cheers to that carrier of the little stone and the friends like her we are lucky to have. And to beginnings and mornings. Treat yourself to that winter's nap for making it through 2023, Jenny -- and for not missing the couple of thrilling highs it offered between beat downs. I do actually think Travis is the one and she'll make him a better speller.
Thank you Jen, as always, for an inspirational read! Here’s to all those “beginnings” that await us all in 2024. And while I wait for 2024 to arrive I will make sure I talk to the Christmas tree every day and appreciate all the magic of the season. Happy holidays to you and all your family.