This snowy scene is courtesy of last week’s northern adventures in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, where I had the chance to practice my French, do metric and currency conversions (miles to kilometers, Fahrenheit to Celsius, dollar to…well, dollar), and strap on a pair of flattened steel sticks and point my way down the slopes.
On the rides up the ski lift, I’d glance at the expert trails, the ones with the manufactured moguls. They looked so beautiful from above—all those graceful ripples—and the skiers barreling down were like birds, swooping in tight, agile arcs. I admit, I envied them—carving their way down the mountain with such confidence, their springy bodies, the bright streak of their jackets, like a comet, against the snow. Oh, to move through the twists and turns like that!
But when the lift reached the top and I slid off, I knew to steer clear of the signs with a black diamond (or two) affixed to them. That’s not the kind of skier I am.
What I really mean to say is, “That way down the mountain is too hard for me.”
“This is too hard for me.”
This is not the same as “This is too hard.” This is about recognizing limitation and boundaries. This is about understanding personal thresholds, about seeing a misalignment of energy and capacity, and recognizing that a risk, in and of itself, can threaten orientation and safety, and create more harm than reward.
That said, implicit in “This is too hard for me” is the recognition of the variable of time and experience that can initiate, and even catapult, change. “This is too hard for me right now” is what this means. It may not be as hard tomorrow, or next week, or 6 months from now.
I’m telling you not because it got me off the hook of taking the harder (and perhaps more impressive) way down the mountain, but rather that this statement, this decision, led me to enter, full-hearted and full-bodied, the trails I chose instead. Trails that kept me grounded and surer-footed. Trails that gave me a wider span to move. Trails that made it easier to slow down, and turn, and stop sometimes to take in the view.
Often, when I’m working with my writing clients, the question of rigor comes up. And what I mean is the idea that if it’s hard—like, really hard—it’s better. That difficulty isn’t just a catalyst for excellence, but also its evidence. Maybe Ernest Hemingway is to blame, or at least the quote attributed to him: “There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” But you know what happens when you open a vein? Your lifeblood drains out. You die.
I don’t want to die writing, just like I don’t want to die skiing. I want to live writing. I want to keep finding more trails to explore, the ones that invite my full-bodied presence. The ones with more space to change direction, more forgiveness when I fall. The ones that feel more like a gravitational pull than a careening abyss. The ones that invite my enthusiasm, my curiosity, without threatening my spirit. When I write this way, and when I choose a life of writing that moves in this way, there isn’t really a hard or an easy. There is, quite simply, life. And speaking of, here’s a poem from the archives (July 4, 2017) that maybe says it better.
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