-Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Kerouac was a literary genius and sought to find beauty in moving forward and new adventure despite the sadness of leaving things behind. Jack's life in On the Road is in constant motion in search of "it." For those who know Kerouac well, he, like most literary geniuses, died a very unsatisfied death, alone. Some will claim it is because he lived his life in pursuit of something that is not tangible, and would not view what was tangible as good enough. Kerouac was so focused on moving forward that he might have neglected to see that this life is not linear at all.
As the season begins to wind down many of us find ourselves leaning forward to the next crazy venture. There's beauty, sadness, excitement, nervousness, and everything that comes with the changing of the season and figuring out what to do next until we can grab a couple of weeks on snow in the summer and then prepare for the next winter. The feeling of moving forward can make you feel like you are leaving things behind, waving goodbye to the specks who defined your life for the last few months. This feeling only lasts so long, because the older we get the more we realize how interconnected our lives really are and forward and backwards become incredibly relative terms. This "too huge" world Kerouac speaks of is actually way smaller than we think.
Over the last 10 years I have, for lack of better words, been around the block. I have had 4 different home mountains spanning coast to coast, one being in Wintergreen, Virginia, so I don't often expect to run into all the people I have grown up with. "Home" no longer just describes one place to me. However, when in two weeks I wind up running into a vast majority of people spanning that decade... it is a pretty crazy feeling. A reminder that no matter how far we go - we can always go home.
Vermont was an interesting experience (as it almost always is). After years and years of watching the US Open as a spectator, engaging in all the wonderful activities the open brings that do NOT have to do with snowboarding, it was really kind of cool to be on the snowboarding side of the open, however making it nonetheless intimidating. As competition days always go, monday was cancelled due to weather so we actually got to compete on a sunny day on tuesday. We saw the course for the first time Tuesday morning and had an hour to practice before competing. It was a creative course with some interesting features and big jumps. Keeping with the new theme I had not made it through the course before my qualifying run, so I was just trying to get through the course. Needless to say I did not either run, because I managed to overshoot the 70 ft jump everyone else was knuckling (surprise, surprise). I came away with a sore wrist but didn't think much of it, because my ego was far more bruised than my wrist.
Some good things did come out of that day... My parents and my sister were there to watch as well as a special Bunny who I hadn't seen for a good 8 months. I am really lucky to have such an awesome family who are so supportive of what I do. I was glad they were finally able to come to a competition. Happiness is only real when shared. Reconnecting with family and friends pushed the bruisings to the back of my head. The competition was a valiant effort, and definitely not something to be ashamed of due to the size of the jumps, but I came away pretty exhausted.
The next few days the weather was pretty terrible so it consisted more of catching up with old friends than snowboarding. After getting an impromptu xray because of increased swelling, I found out I have a potentially fractured scaphoid (small bone on the inside of your wrist). They splinted up my right hand which has made for an interesting last few days. It's really amazing how useful opposable thumbs are... I'm pretty sure we take those for granted. Luckily we've got two of them so hitting the space bar when we type can be easily substituted. Due to the nature of a scaphoid fracture I have to get re-xrayed 10 days after the injury to find out if it is definitely fractured. Gonna take things a day at a time and the take it from there.
After the clinic took my right thumb away from me and the Vermont weather failed to get better, I decided to skip out on Rev tour and head back to Utah to get my last two weeks of sacred snowboarding time before I head back to school. I skipped out on the Open parties and went home to Connecticut for the weekend. Got to catch up with some friends, get some family time, and hang out with the dogs. Definitely did not miss east coast snow that much...
I am now en route to Utah, ready to enjoy the last few weeks of my "abroad" time before switching to the daily grind.
While it was a long trip, it was a really awesome experience being able to compete in the Open. I came out of it exhausted and maybe a little broken, but it is all part of the territory. Although it was not my best performance of the year, actually being able to be there was a refreshing experience. Also I got to see lots of great friends and play with the puppies.
And Mr. Kerouac, while I love and live by On the Road, I think its important we realize its not always goodbye. No matter where we go we always carry the people we have met in our lives with us, because its the people, places, and experiences along the way that have helped us to shape who we are and what we live for, and you can't ever lose that.
