Creative Nonfiction Contest Finalist
Why Starting At The Top Is The Best Way to Learn
My brother’s radical method of teaching me how to live more
“I’m bored!” my brother said.
We’d both traveled from opposite coasts to spend Christmas with our parents in their rural home in the mountains. The holiday weather was brutal, putting a damper on our plans to hang out in the city. But my older brother had another idea.
“Let’s go skiing!”
While he was an expert skier, I never learned, nor could I afford such extravagances while in college.
“Give me 20 minutes,” he said, “and you’ll be up and running.”
As we stood at base camp, I studied all the adults and kids gliding down the hill. They looked as if they were floating on air. And I figured if a kid could ski, so could I.
I put my skis on the flat ground and felt comfortable moving my legs. “Feel okay?” my brother asked. “Yeah!”
That was my intro to skiing.
As my brother and I moonwalked to the chairlift for my first run, I hit a patch of astroturf painted white to look like snow. Although my brother knew about the turf, I didn’t. The sudden jolt ejected me out of one of my ski…
