Last year started with a bang. Literally and figuratively. Like everyone else, my New Year’s day started with an evil hangover. That’s the literal part – the banging in my head. The other part is that I was nursing this hangover on a luxurious coach…to the French Alps. Bang! A 16-hour ride from Groningen, Netherlands to the Alpine resort of Valfréjus for a week of snowboarding and overall awesomeness. In comparison, to say this year started with a whimper would be a gross understatement. There was the aforementioned hangover to deal with, but this time I was nursing it over the morning shift at work on 2-hour sleep and a year’s worth of broken resolutions had I made resolutions, which I didn’t. Whimper.
As I trudged across the icy tundra of Gastown to work, carefully navigating the gauntlet of frozen 2010 vomit, my mind started drifting to the fresh powder of Valfréjus on our second day of boarding, and how it was like riding on cumulus clouds – the ninth ones – with the sun shining and my rental board on fire. It was my first time on fresh powder and my first time snowboarding for real. I had gone down mountains before – the Swiss Alps, Whistler, etc. – but it was either on my ass or enjoying the view while doing the falling leaf, and had been taught by friends before, or rather they tried and I failed, but this time something finally clicked. To be perfectly honest, I never really enjoyed snowboarding before. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. How could I? It was such a painful and humiliating ordeal. Falling on your face in front of a snickering battalion of Burton-clad wannabe Shaun Whites is a pride-swallowing experience no matter how cool you are in real life. I wanted so much to like it but it just wasn’t any fun for me.
The first day at Valfréjus was no different. It didn’t matter that our cabin was steps away from the gondola, or that the view up top was breathtaking, or that the air was crisp and invigorating, after a few runs I was miserable. “It’s all downhill from here,” I had jokingly said as we stepped out the gondola at the peak when I was still happy and the air wasn’t full of failure and inadequacy, like it was now. I spent the rest of that day soldiering up a brave face, but was mired in a self-pitying urge to give up. When in Rome…right? Well, it was a new year, maybe my luck would change. I decided to persevere and made it my goal to get better through adversity and on my second day I had that breakthrough. I wouldn’t call it a New Year’s resolution, but I was resolute. Resolutions are fine if you feel you need that formal declaration, I just don’t think you need a calendar to tell you when to make them.
So 2010 brought with it an early triumph of sorts, and there were other petty victories along the way, and although this year started with a whimper, I wonder what sort of breakthrough 2011 will bring. Is this the year I finally learn how to surf? How to speak Dutch? Is this the year I can finally say, “I know kung fu,” or rather, “Ik ken kungfu.” Mastering a new skill is always exhilarating. Remember that feeling? It’s a brave new world full of feelies, orgy porgies, and centrifugal bumble-puppies, a soma-state utopia greater than any Aldous Huxtable imagined world. And who wouldn’t want that?
Back at the bar, having mixed an umpteenth round of Caesars, I thought again of victories and defeats and how we fight battles within ourselves everyday and how sometimes we win but most times we lose, and I thought about how fleeting and ephemeral victories were compared to the permanence of defeat because of how it could change you irrevocably. My friends often complained that my articles and general outlook were always negative and full of dread. Well, maybe this can be the year for a kinder, gentler, more optimistic Tom Day. Misschien zal ik, Milhouse, misschien zal ik…
I ended up snowboarding a few more times in 2010, the last time being on the eve of New Year’s eve, so you could say my year was bookended by mountains. Not a bad way to start and end the year. And while I’m no Shaun White, though I am clad in Burton these days (hey, they make great gear!), I can now carve up and down the mountain with my head up – again literally and figuratively – and I’m having a blast. Happy New Year!
– Tom Day
