DECEMBER 18, 2022 – When you’re young, you dream big dreams. When you’re old, you light your pipe, lean back in the recliner and recall the big dreams that might’ve been but for circumstances . . . beyond . . . ahem . . . your control.
In my case, the big dream derailed because of “circumstances beyond my control” was competing in the ’84 Olympics. In the day, I was drunk on self-delusion.
The “dream,” however fanciful, developed my first winter after college. I hated law school and found “self-realization” by running—then skiing—obsessively, compulsively. I entered a few local ski races at a time when few people had “figured out” x-c skiing. (I’d taken it up and competed my freshman year of high school.) In small fields of racers relatively new to the sport, I surprised myself by finishing close to the top.
A dream was set aflame—kindled by a “could-a” moment on a sunny day the previous June, a few days before college graduation and 16 months after a “was-a” moment . . .
. . . A day-long blizzard had been raging across Maine. By 8:00 that February night our campus lay under a foot of new snow with more on its way. I abandoned my studies, grabbed my skis and raced around campus. In the storm I encountered members of the school’s x-c ski team, also whipping around. I hadn’t even thought of joining the college team. I didn’t think I’d qualify, and I was still years away from my OCD phase of running and skiing. Yet, that night, I was striding, gliding around for a while with the team. As the wind picked up, we eventually went our separate ways, our tracks disappearing quickly behind us.
On that warm day in early June the next year . . . I was chatting with several classmates, including Peter Benoit, older brother of Joan Benoit, a year behind us, who went on to Olympic Marathon fame. That last ski season, Peter had been captain of the x-c ski team. We were acquainted but not close friends. During a lull in the free-ranging chat, Peter turned to me and said, “I feel bad that I never told you this, but remember that night last year when we met while skiing around campus in that blizzard?”
“Yes,” I said, puzzled.
“When I saw you ski, I knew you should be on the ski team, but I thought you’d be a competitive threat to me, so I didn’t say anything.”
In the moment, I was flattered, not angry. I was also relieved. Had he recruited me, I figured, a truth might’ve been revealed: that I wasn’t as good as he’d assumed. Better for Peter’s own self-doubt to have prevailed, saving me from the test.
Today I skied hard in “Little Switzerland.” The cold—the mercury was at 10F—didn’t bother me, especially when I had the wind to my back. I celebrated the fact that less than a year since my diagnosis, I could ski at the same pace and duration as I had two years ago.
The “could-a” ski dream . . . couldn’t have matched the ski dream I lived today, surrounded by fresh, prismatic snowflakes sparkling like gemstones in the low, bright December sun—jewels more precious than all Olympic gold.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
