Sermon on the Ski Slope
All along, I thought I was alone.
“Don’t you hate Sunday nights?” I blurt out to my friend as we wash our dinner dishes.
She and I are 16, living for the summer in my parents’ condo in Breckenridge, a ski town. We work in Keystone, the next ski area over. My parents let us use their car all summer, so I’m our driver.
“Huh?” She says.
“Tomorrow’s work. Everyone hates their job.”
“I don’t hate my job,” she says. I tilt my head sideways at her like a baffled labradoodle.
I keep washing dishes while she dries. My mind drifts.
I’m ten. My dad hasn’t spoken all evening with Sunday night blues. He hates his truck-driving job. We watch a Billy Graham revival on TV. It’s hell on earth tonight.
Up here at Keystone, my friend works in housekeeping at a condo complex. So did I until three weeks ago. Our boss moved me out to the swimming pool. Now I maintain chemicals in the water, check room keys, tidy up and gaze at the sky.
Still, every weekend, Sunday nights give me a stomachache.
Mid-August already. Summer’s almost over. It’s Sunday morning and my brain is so blue it hurts.
I walk down into Breckenridge, hang a left, keep walking and reach the bottom of a ski lift. It’s not operational. Stationary chairs dangle by a cable above my head thirty feet in the air. I see wild strawberries growing in the grass. They’re free so I eat one, then another. I eat them all the way up the hill under the lift until they stop growing.
I’m furious about work tomorrow. Work is a cancer on society.
I keep climbing and try to push up faster to the top of the lift in case of afternoon storms and lightening. The air gets thinner. I breathe harder. My mind drifts.
“Get out of that bed!’ My dad yells, yanking my covers off. I’m six. He’s an army man at heart.
I run to the bathroom, wait ‘til the coast is clear and run back into my bedroom. It’s church day. I put on a dress and shiny black shoes. So cold in the house that I’d like to wear a blanket.
Driving there, my dad brakes and yells at a car on the road as ours slides on the ice. Wipers pound. Snow comes down. Mom tries to be pleasant in the front seat.
Pews. Singing. Jesus hangs on a cross on the wall behind the minister preaching about sin. Seeing Jesus up there makes me so sad that I want to kill myself. My dad smacks my brother on the head for messing with the hymnal.
I reach the top of the lift. Now I can see the whole town and beyond. It looks like a miniature village with toy cars in the streets.
Keep climbing?
Go, go, go, commands a familiar voice in my head. Get going. Move it. Keep up.
It’s steeper now but nothing I can’t handle, I assure you. Don’t panic. Onward, soldier. Marching as to war. I sing it in my head: With the cross of Jesus, going on before.
My brother’s tearing the church bulletin. Mom can’t stop him. Dad strikes. My brother bends over and holds his head. One thing he doesn’t do is cry.
Jesus keeps hanging on that cross in agony while we sing. How everyone in the room isn’t bawling their eyes out at the sight of him, I don’t know.
I make it to the top of the third lift. I’m way, way above timberline. Clouds roll in. I’m breathing much harder. It’s steeper. Thinner air.
I trip on a rock and slide down a few feet. Dang it. It’s steep. I get back up and carefully keep going, trying to find flat places like the tops of weeds or embedded rocks to plant my feet on. I brought no water. It’s colder up here. It’s about twenty feet to the top. So dang steep. I’m light-headed, dizzy, exposed with no trees anywhere and it’s still Sunday.
*****
“Whew, what a view!”
I shout, “Hello!” to the mountains stretching out to the horizon and wait for an echo. It’s purple mountain majesties in all directions up here. “Above the fruited plain!” I belt out like no one’s watching.
Snow from last winter dots distant peaks. Some poke up through low, wispy clouds as dark, heavier ones gather overhead.
“Hey!” She shouts from behind me. It’s sharp and annoyed like her car’s getting stolen.
I spin around. “You made it! Welcome!” I open my arms wide to her.
She pulls herself up over the last big rock. She drops down, leans over and vomits. The thin air is spinning her mind in circles.
“Who are you?” She says, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. Her eyes are tired and sick.
“Just breathe,” I say. She does.
“I’m the future you. I’m 64. Exactly four times your age. What a nice coincidence.”
I think she’s too woozy to comprehend this. She scrutinizes me. Sees my knitted hat. “That’s my pink hat I knitted last winter.”
“I know. I love it. I hung onto it all this time. Great job with it,” I say. She ignores me. She can’t ever accept a compliment.
“Is it okay if I sit by you?”
“No. I want to be alone.”
“Yeah. About that ever-present goal to be alone…”
I walk closer and sit near her but not so close that she can’t see around me. She must always see an escape route. “You can run but you can’t hide forever.”
She’s jumpy. I’m too close. One false move and she’ll bolt.
More clouds roll in, gathering with gusto.
“I don’t think we have much time up here. Let’s talk. I came to help you.”
Her face tightens, body tenses. She wraps her arms around her scrunched up legs. Sometimes kind words feel like poisonous darts.
I have an idea. Those strawberries only went so far.
“We like peanut butter, right?” I ask.
She perks up. “Do you have some?”
No. Why’d I mention it?
Wait. Let’s look. I peek behind a rock on the edge. Lo and behold, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches appear.
I hand her one and sit beside her. She munches it fast. I locate two water bottles and give her one. She chugs half of it.
“Let’s put your jacket on,” I say. It’s tied around her waist. Her hands are cold and stiff. I help her zip up. “So?” I ask gently.
“So what?”
“So why’d you climb up here? You must have a reason.”
Her eyes implore me. Don’t judge.
She takes another drink. So do I.
“My dad wants me taken out. He wants to see me dead.”
Water squirts out of my nose.
“I said not to judge me!”
“I’m not! Keep talking.”
“I came into this world unlovable. It’s just one of those cold, hard, unchangeable facts of life.”
She walks to the edge of the mountain, sits down and hangs her feet over. I sit beside her.
“So now what?” I ask. It starts to sprinkle on us.
“I can’t fix it,” she says through tears.
“I know. You try so hard to fix what you can’t even see. It must be exhausting.”
“I see a lot. More than you think. What can’t I see?”
“That you’re not broken.” I hold her gaze. She blinks first, then looks at me again. I hold her gaze as the wind kicks up. The sky darkens. She looks at me again. I hold her gaze and scoot her back from the edge. I take off my ski jacket and put it on her. I put our pink hat on her head. Rain starts. She’s got to get back down.
“Other people’s words don’t set your worth.”
“I can’t even feel my worth.”
“Then I’ll feel it for you until you can.”
A bolt of distant lightning strikes. “Ha. God’s reminding us who’s in charge,” she says, tying her shoelace, getting ready to go down. A second lightning bolt strikes closer. Thunder explodes across the mountain range.
“About God,” I say. “Our religion needs a fine-tooth combing out. Religious guilt is bad news. That’ll be a thorn in your side for decades to come.”
Rain pours down on us. She’s such a dutiful girl. She stays and hears me out, struggling to listen, getting soaked.
She’s got to go. “Know you’re loved. Got it?”
She nods. She’ll need so much more reinforcement to undo what’s been done.
“Should I go down now?” She walks to the place where she came up.
“Yes, go. Remember how Dad taught us to descend a mountain sideways. Careful in this rain.”
She runs to me, hugs me, and starts down the mountain. I watch her plant her feet sideways, hopping down, moving fast. “You’re lovable! Got that? Can you hear me? Oh, one more thing! Follow your impulses!”
“Okay!” She shouts and disappears behind a ridge.
*****
Last day up here in Breckenridge. Summer’s over. My friend and I walk down Main Street and go into a knick-knack store. I notice bumper stickers on the far wall and go to them.
“Ski Breckenridge,” one says. I do already. “Summit County Ski Bum.” Double no.
Then I see it. “Get High on Life.” It has an outline of two skiers on a chair lift.
I feel like buying it but worry my dad will get mad if it’s on the car. I get it anyway.
At home, I say good-bye to my friend and unpack the car in our driveway. My dad comes out and sees my bumper sticker. He thinks it’s a drug reference. I assure him it’s not. I wait. He’ll make me take it off. He doesn’t. He takes some bags from my hands and carries them inside.
I smile at my sticker. One of the corners is peeling off. I press hard on it, so it sticks.
***
Sincere thanks to my Write Hearted friends Rick Lewis, Larry Urish, Rachel Parker, Alden Cox, Marie Friberger, Dana Allen and Matt Cyr for your notes.
The pain you and your brother felt at the hand of your father and the twisted , frankly, unbiblical way he treated you breaks my heart. To see your heart so tender as to cry at Jesus on the cross is so moving.
The conversation between your old/young self is exquisite and life affirming.
This is a lovely piece of writing, Kathy.
Oh Kathy. What a lovely journey this piece has made; really, what a lovely journey you have made. I'm without words. In my mind I'm looking across the rock faces at the clouds mounting up in that icy blue sky, feeling the wind and the pressure in my chest. I'm not cold, though. I'm in awe of your young self, so determined, living her puzzle with such intuitive courage and passion. Amazing how the felt sense of that vast space of rock wind and light lingers, and the sense of timelessness in the puzzle. You say: "Oh, one more thing! Follow your impulses!" Thank you so much.