A new landscape

When everything else has gone from my brain—the President’s name, the state capitals, the neighborhoods where I lived, and then my own name and what it was on earth I sought, and then at length the faces of my friends, and finally the faces of my family—when all this has dissolved, what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way and that.

-Annie Dillard, An American Childhood 

Wherever I travel, I compare new landscapes to what I’ve seen before. It gives me great pleasure to find one place evocative of another, and to remember. 

Last weekend, made three-days long because of the Women's Day national holiday, I saw quite a bit of this country. By road trip with my colleagues and the trekking union from the capital we drove to a ski destination in the east of the country, with an extra afternoon to explore the town. 

The drive reminded me of eastern Utah, entering on I-80 from Wyoming and speeding through the canyon to I-84, or up by Dubois headed to Jackson. The return, on the south side of the huge lake we circled, it was the pastoral backside of the Tetons in Idaho, or somewhere on the south island of New Zealand. I thought, if this was the US, there would be million-dollar homes instead of rows of poplars.  

To the skiing, my eagerness was out of character. I don’t like skiing:

There are so many better ways to spend $100+/day

It’s possible to get hurt badly or die

It requires waking up really early (usually to drive 100+ miles)

I’ve never improved in my six or so outings since 1995

The opportunity for a change of scenery, change of company, and a look at the natural beauty of this country moved me to sign in a heartbeat. Besides, I didn’t have to ski if I didn’t want to. 

Turns out I enjoyed myself. With $19 lift tickets and $4 equipment rentals (thanks to Women’s Day), not getting hurt badly or dying, not leaving the guesthouse until 9 am, and going two days in a row, I noticed improvement. And it was heartening for my life together with Tom ‘Black Diamond Mogul Hot-Thighs’ K.; we might now both enjoy that thing that comes before après ski.  

The Idaho-looking section (with poplars)

 An old carnival in an old park, still dead with winter

 A lynx at the depressing local zoo

Women's Day mania at a flower shop 

 The Dungan mosque (we were about 80 miles from China)

The colleague from whom I borrowed this helmet was riding
up the lift talking to a cute girl, and she asked him, "Why is that
lady [me] wearing a climbing helmet and skiing so slow?"
Lest my success go to my [well-protected] head