Today I went snowboarding. Winter is losing its grip and is just about ready for a holyday. I swear I didn’t see any snow until I turned into the parking lot at Stryn Vinterski and caught sight of the scarcely covered, slightly dirty looking slopes. While my car was digging into the mud, I was wondering how there was still that much snow just a few meters away.
I always enjoy connecting random situations in my mind and look at their similarities. Especially when I drive. Today was no exception. Driving is strangely relaxing again, even after my accident, but I am still looking to rearrange and change my perspective on fear and danger.
To get to Stryn I had to drive for about 1,5 hours. As much as I enjoy sliding from side to side in my Hyundai Getz, it is a very nice feeling to be back on dry roads and know that your car will do only as it’s told. Combine that with the smooth handling of a Peugeot 307 SW and the light hum of a diesel engine who’s ever move you can predict, and, yeah, I was driving fast. Ahead of me was a SUV with similar intentions. These are the cars that put you in the sort of trance that only a quick look at the speedometer can hope to break. If you’ve ever tried my old, now trashed Hyundai Getz or my brothers 1996 Mitsubishi Lancer, you might know what speed is and the little numbers on the dashboard might ring a bell in your mind. In a car that feels like a train, the concept of speed is very vague, and speed limits are only there so the police can make some money off of you on a rainy day, no doubt. I try to remember what this sort of speed has felt like in a different car, on a different road. But my brain doesn’t want to remember, does it? It only wants more and more and more. Should I have taken that fear that I no longer feel more seriously?
At Stryn Vinterski, I am sliding down the hill. The map by the lift said “easy”, but this slope is beyond easy. It is almost so easy I forgot to notice how hard it was. Hard to stay moving that is. The snow is heavy and wet but still surprisingly fast and every turn I make causes a delightful spray of sugary snow in the milky fog (this caused an unpleasant memory for me. Have you ever tries to drink milk after dipping Oreos in it? The taste! D: ). But I was not there just to do stuff I already know so well I could do it in my sleep. I had set some goals for myself while this was all at a comfortable distance. After my car accident, I decided it is pretty stupid to be afraid of falling on flat ground while not thinking twice about driving on the unbelievably narrow roads around here with rocks and landslides coming down every other day. I had thought a lot about riding fakie and I had come to the conclusion that I should be perfectly capable of doing it if I just tried. Now I was scared. Not the sort of scared that can’t be dealt with though. I had picked up some speed and the slope had forced me onto my heel edge while I was still going forward (I ride “goofy”, right leg first). Turning my board to go fakie (backwards, left leg first) on my toes meant i had to turn it 180 degrees, all the while balancing my board right to avoid face planting. It went pretty good, but I did indeed face plant.
While I was still driving, I felt another emotion surfacing. A black little troll was materializing in the back of my mind. The reason was that I and the SUV had caught up with another car. The blissful feeling of good flow, high speed and spring had melted away as this was someone with a different idea about driving. Like a mental reflex I could feel the familiar frustration coming on. I have been working on smoothing out this emotional bump. The self-righteous annoyance used to come creep into my mind like a poisonous fog I couldn’t see past or even wonder at the reason for. The SUV quickly overtook this law abiding person and disappeared off on the horizon... or the next turn... whatever. I, on the other hand, was determined to calm down. I just don’t overtake cars that are right on the speed limit. As good as my intentions were, it was still a little difficult to watch the other car go. Behind me another SUV had popped out of the ground it seemed. It is beyond me why they’re so popular, but this one was hard to ignore as it seemed to be attached to my bumper. You probably know the sort. Maybe it was just trying to give me a friendly (2 ton) bump. Like “Hey there! Let me help you speed up!:D”.Though I was inpatient, I was at a good 4-5 sec distance from the car ahead of me. If this is the product of my good judgment or my rebellion against my father is unknown even to me. Can you believe he tells me off for driving too fast and then turns around and makes fun of me for NOT following too close? Something about driving seems to make us all crazy, and I am sad to say I’m not above peer pressure. Parts of my brain was already looking for a good stretch of road to overtake it, no matter how loud my reason was yelling “DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT DON’T DO IT!”. Looking back on it, I can almost hear the war in my head. Being a girl, people expect you to be a shitty driver and extremely slow and anxious. There is nothing I love more than to prove it wrong, but I have to pick my battles and don’t get carried away. I started on my positive thinking to distract myself from the little monster that was eating away at my patience. It was a Sunday morning, I was in no hurry, 80 km/h is a perfectly good speed and I had no right or need to try to bully the car ahead of me into driving faster by pushing it the way the car behind me was pushing me. Also, I shouldn’t let myself be bullied; I’m not a kid anymore. I soon calmed down, the sun returned in front of my eyes and the music in my ears started to register with my brain again as my negative feelings slowly but now surely were losing ground. This wasn’t so bad.
Back home that afternoon I was explaining to my dad why the particular turn from forward heel edge to fakie toe edge (a sort of frontside 180 on the ground) was so difficult. I was surprised when he understood, as he is a sworn cross-country skier. I supposed he has involuntarily watched a few snowboard movies, being my dad and all. Then he asked me why I didn’t just turn the other way instead. Confused, I replied: “Nei men det er jo dritlett!” (“but that is really easy”). Then he went “Å! Så du lika å tryne?” (“Oh! So you enjoy falling then?”), sarcastic as always, wonder where he gets that from.
I don’t know exactly what my motivation was. I want to become a better snowboarder and have as much fun as I did the first time I strapped both my feet to one board instead of two skis. It was the most difficult thing I had ever tried and though I took to it relatively quickly, I don’t know why I stuck with it as I was quite prone to giving up at the time. I don’t think I had crashed so much and so hard in all the years I’d skied as I did my first days on a board. Maybe it was fate, if there is such a thing, because I have learned a lot from snowboarding. When I return home after snowboarding, I always feel a bit stupid if I know I didn’t fall even once because I didn’t try anything new. I also showed a certain talent for driving from the get go. But I was dead scared of driving and my parents almost had to make me get a driver’s licence. My dad is joking about it now, saying they have regretted it ever since. Who would have thought the table would turn just like that?
My first tries confirmed that I had been right in my estimation of my abilities with a board. I could see that this would be easy as pie if I just relaxed and didn’t anticipate the end of the world. Even though the light at the end of the tunnel was bright and blinding, I was not yet in the clear. I was smiling from ear to ear when I tried it for the third or fourth or fifth time, but I still held back just a little bit. I had noticed the light spray coming off the nose of my board on my first attempts, and I have been snowboarding for long enough that I knew exactly what it meant. It meant I was just a little bit late to tip my balance from heel to toe, and just a split second from falling... actually make that a doubly split second. Eventually, my heel edge hooked. When it did, I wasn’t surprised by the force with which I was tossed onto my back and sent tumbling down the hill. I knew exactly how fast I was going and the exact consequences if I didn’t clean up that tiny shift in balance. The ground was as far as my feet and gravity was the same old. I was scared because I knew what could happen in full detail, but is that any reason to fear something? It took me a moment to distinguish the feeling of a damaged nose from the feeling of a nose full of snow, as was the case here. When I stopped sliding and lay there on the ground for a moment it was only to dig the snow out of my nose and get my headset back in my ears before getting back on my feet. I wasn’t hurt in any way and I didn’t need to think about it. It was plain and simple, just get back on my feet.
I don’t want to be scared of driving, but I want to be right not to be scared. I don’t want to drive like an idiot and don’t realize it. We all know driving is dangerous, but it can be sooooo mellow, like a stroll in the park. When I learned to drive it was super scary! But I got used to it. Then I started taking little risks, and the risks started to seem safe and they grew bigger and bigger. My mind started to accept the bullshit my ego was feeding it. I suppose it got tired of fighting the inevitable and decided to save some energy if I was so hell bent on putting myself in harm’s way. I always wanted to keep up with every idiot that ever overtook me, even if I knew it was stupid. I never figured myself for a stupid person, but intelligence is not what it’s cracked up to be. Some things we just don’t want to understand. Sometimes when I drive fast, I look around for the switch to turn my brain back on. Surely it must be in there somewhere if I just look closely. Maybe if could find it, I could figure out if I’m being really clever or really stupid. There is a fine line in there somewhere and it’s not as easy to spot as one might think.
I am so glad my car doesn’t have an automatic gearbox and cruise control. Then I might have to drive even faster for it to be fun.... good lord.
Here is a picture of me in Hemsedal.
And another, less dignified one :P When you dress like that, everyone assumes you're good though.
Completely off topic, here the Golden Cat helping me read a book about portraits:
More art shit that I did:
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