It’s the middle of April in the ‘Ville, which means telephone poles start growing yard sale signs and people get ready to deal. Finley and I woke early this morning, snuck out of the house like thieves, and hit Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Then we made it to four mostly disappointing yard sales in under an hour. She sweet-talked a lady out of a flowered ring, and I found two beginning guitar books for $1, but other than that it was pretty barren.
Because the last sale had taken us most of the way down the hill, I parked the Scout in Ellicott City and we sat next to the river to eat our donuts. While we watched the water pass by, Finley noticed several pairs of ducks nearby and then a family of goslings further upstream, so we crossed the bridge and walked to the end of the parking lot to find a mother goose preening on the rocks while twelve goslings darted across the water in front of her. Finn and I stood and watched for about ten minutes, entranced.
After bringing some food home for Mama, we moved up to the attic to straighten out the mess and get everything in the atrium up there. Now that it’s (mostly) clean I can start to wrap my head around what has to happen next in there: buttoning up the electrical work. Then, we packed a hiking bag, loaded the Scout up with recyclable metal, and drove to Elkridge.
I gutted two aluminum G5 towers about two years ago and I’ve been slowly collecting different types of recyclable metals for longer than that. All of this junk was beginning to get in the way, so I thought we’d take care of that stuff and get a hike in on the way home. The metals only brought $5 (looks like aluminum and copper is WAY down from the last time I was there) but it’s great to have that stuff out of the basement and garage. That room, plus what we got back from having the tandem gone, makes the garage look positively cavernous.
A hike was just what Finn and I both needed. The air was cool when we walked into the woods but by the time we’d reached the bottom of the trail it was perfect. The trail we followed is one I used to ride with my friend Rob 20+ years ago, one that starts at the top of Catonsville and follows a stream down a valley to meet up with a larger river in the heart of the park. I remember it as a blurry downhill with several water crossings and a few heart-stopping obstacles, but with Finn it was a quiet exploration of felled trees, burbling streambanks, and sun-dappled pathways. We stopped to look at small fish darting in the shallows of the water and greet the dogs that crossed our path, of which there were many. Finn took pleasure in finding the optimal way to cross over each water obstacle, preferring felled trees to rocks. With no heat or bugs, it was absolutely the perfect time to explore, and we both had a great time together.
We got to the bottom and broke out the snacks, and word came that our neighbors were going to the park across the street to play after some ice cream, and would Finn like to come? So we hustled our way back up the hill, picked up some lunch for Mama, then walked over to the park for some playtime. Finn’s friend stopped over for another hour’s worth of play in the yard, and by the time she left it was dinnertime.
Finley sat on the bench next to me, wailing out loud as small groups of people skied and boarded past us. We were at the top of the bunny slope on Liberty Mountain, on our third trip down, and she was at the end of her rope.
We’d taken Thursday off to learn how to snowboard together. The mountain was pretty quiet for a weekday, which meant I’d chosen a good day to go. We got our lift tickets, rented boots, helmet, and boards, and changed into our gear with no lines. I walked us into the pro shop to pick up snow gloves (we were both wearing knit gloves, which would have been icicles in 15 minutes) and then we walked outside to find the instructor.
We got a goofy kid named Jeff who punctuated every sentence with the word “Cool,” used interchangeably as a declarative statement and question. He showed us how to stand, start, stop, and ride the chair lift. Finley did pretty well at these, but had difficulty controlling her board when moving from place to place.
We rode to the top of the bunny slope and continued the lesson, mainly on stopping, turning, and switching direction. She did really well at balancing herself, and was quickly moving down the slope in control of her direction. When she was looking off at the chair lift, over in the woods, or at other skiers descending the slope, however, she wound up losing control and falling over. For a child who spends about 30% of her attention on what she’s actually doing, this was problematic.
With our lesson over, we took a break and hit the lodge for some lunch, which she devoured faster than I did. We shared a hot chocolate and then geared up to go back out.
Lining up at the lift, she got herself on the chair like a pro. We laughed and chatted on the way up, but at the top she wiped out directly under the dropoff point and froze. The attendant stopped the lift and helped her off, and she struggled to get out of the way.
At the top of the bunny slope for our second run, I told her we were just going to concentrate on starting and stopping, and we practiced her turns and braking. And she did really well! When I figured out that I had to give her a visual point of reference to work with, she turned and braked like she was born with a skateboard. We slowly made our way down the mountain with no problems, but she began to get frustrated with the ice at the bottom of the mountain.
Hoping I could keep her on the horse, we got on the lift and headed right back up. I gave her a pep talk and words of encouragement all the way up, but she wiped out at the top again, which shook her confidence. She crawled over to the bench, defeated, and this is where our story begins.
I calmly started talking to her while she cried in frustration. She told me she was tired of falling and that she was hurt and didn’t want to keep falling down. I pointed out that she’d only fallen hard once, and that on a normal school day she came home covered in bruises she didn’t remember. She then told me she wasn’t physically injured, she had emotional injuries and that she was just going to walk down the mountain. We went on in circles like this for about twenty minutes, enough for several groups of beginners to pass us twice, each time eyeing Finn warily as she carried on.
As I talked to her, a second part of my brain stood off to the side and observed, quietly amazed that I wasn’t embarrassed by her outburst, and that I didn’t really care what anyone else thought. She was clearly overwhelmed with the feels, and it was my job to help her navigate through this.
Eventually I got her to calm down and convinced her that she wouldn’t hurt herself, and that we should continue slowly making our way down the hill so there was no chance of falling hard. She finally acquiesced and we rode down twice, until she fell (gently, I should mention) and worked herself back up into a state of anguish again. At this point she began unclipping her boots from the board and stood up, ready to walk.
I was at a crossroads. Should I continue talking her down from the ledge, or should I play the nuclear option? I chose nuclear. Because at that point, I was pretty much done. I said, “OK, I’ll see you at the bottom,” and turned and began boarding away. This was not easy to do. Turning my back on her is not something I’ve ever really done, but I felt like Tough Love was the best course of action here.
For whatever reason, the part of my brain that is still, somehow, tuned to the frequency of her cries was still active, because it made me stop and turn about 100 yards down the slope. She had dropped her board and was wailing at the top of her lungs.
I unclipped my board and walked back up to her. She was saying (screaming) something like, “YOU LEFT ME ALL ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN” until I made it up next to her, and we sat down together. She told me she was tired of falling down, etc., etc., and was upset I’d left her. I told her she’d quit on me, and I wanted to have fun with her. Then, I don’t remember if it was me or her, the subject of fear came up, and she told me she was afraid of boarding down the mountain. I gave her a hug and reminded her that she had already done it twice. I told her it was OK to be afraid, but if she let her fear get the better of her, she’d quit whenever things got a little scary. I told her that if she quit on this, she would find it easy to quit on other things, and that she’d miss out on a lot of the fun things in life, like snowboarding with Dad or skydiving with Mama. She reached out and I gave her a big hug and reminded her how proud I was of how she was doing.
Once the storm passed, she seemed to gain some confidence in herself, and I gave her a pep talk. And then, God bless her, she strapped on her board, stood up, and we started down the mountain again. About 2/3 of the video above is from that last run, where she gets up, has a good ride, falls down, gets back up, and keeps going.
We left after that run, as I think she learned a good lesson and went out on a high note, and she’s told me she wants to go back. I had a blast, and I’m definitely going to take her. I couldn’t be prouder of her.
Jen and I are sitting on the couch looking at our school email and reconfiguring our syllabus to account for 2″ of snow and another lost day of class. It’s not actually snowing right now, but they decided to close UMBC to be safe. I’ve got the day off for the holiday anyway.
We’ve had Jen’s old friend Chris in town for the weekend, which has been fun. Saturday we took him out for dinner at Victoria Gastro Pub, where we all ate until we were stuffed. Sunday was laid back, which was good because it was about 10˚ outside and nobody wanted to go anywhere. Originally we’d planned on hitting the Visionary Arts Museum but we didn’t get our act together until 4 in the afternoon.
My tentative plan for Thursday is to take a day off work and drive Finley up to Whitetail to spend the day learning how to snowboard. The weather is supposed to be sunny and mild, which will make for a happier Finley and thus a happier Idiot.
We walked over to the elementary school with the neighbors yesterday to do some sledding as the sun went down. What a great way to end the day.
We’re hunkered down under about 20″ of snow here in the ‘Ville, and it looks like it’s finally stopped falling. The roads outside are quiet, and there are 3’ icicles hanging from the fancy new LED streetlamps.
Finn and I spent the morning in front of a DVD of Mythbusters building her Christmas LEGOs, warm and cozy in the den. After a late lunch we got curious, bundled ourselves like eskimos and crawled over the drifts outside to make it to the road. I borrowed my neighbor’s snowblower and cut a path on the front sidewalk. By the time I was done the first stuff I shoveled was under 3″ of new snow.
We came back inside and made some dinner, then watched it in front of Hotel Transylvania 2 while the wind and snow howled outside. It finished at about 11 or so, but the wind is still shaking the trees and lifting the eaves. I’ll be out tomorrow shoveling but I doubt anything is happening on Monday.