Learning to Fly

Now how cute is SHE? This tiny woman is the only thing between me and a big pile of snow landing on my head. Her name is Harumi and she is a mountain guide here in Lech, but she lives most of the year on her family farm in Northern Japan. Everyone simply everyone is talking about this incredible woman and how she skis. Gerold told us we must try to get her, and then today another Mountain guide told his class in front of us to watch her; he actually said: "I want you guys to ski like her...she is the best skier in Lech". I have never heard that in this town.
So what the hell was I doing with her? good question...totally random. When Wolfgang had to go back to his regular clients we went in to get someone for me and they said Harumi was available for two days. I make Thomas come with me the first day though because I am a little worried she will commit Hara-Kiri if she has to spend the day with the likes of me. When Katia and Gerold hear, they want to come along. I tell Gerold he is not invited...unless he comes only in his long underwear and does not use skis...I do not need her going all out. But Katia comes..so it is the four of us.

Here is the thing: I cannot even see it.....when she skis with me she is a beautiful skier: who isn't around here? but the last hour I gave her to Thomas alone and he said it was unreal. She takes him to the wild blue yonder, and steps.on.the.gas. honey. This little thing absolutely barreling through terrible, uneven, porridge like snow. He said the closest thing he can equate it to is a comet. A tiny comet shooting just above the ground. People actually stood back and gaped.

Something I didn't really know until recently: the best skiers are the downhill skiers. this might be a surprise -like what the hell-go fast, be brave, where is the skill? All of it apparently....the skill is in the control of speed. That is what we are here for people. And the fastest people make the biggest turns. So the deep powder while hard, is like riding a bicycle..once ya got it ya kind of got it...the reverse is not true apparently. Eyewitness accounts of Alberto Tomba in Lech (Frau Schneider took him in the outback!) and Bode Miller in Jackson were two examples...they just crushed the powder..like it was nothing. I wish I had seen it because although he doesn't do it very often, our Thomas can go fast....and he said he could barely keep up. (and you just know she was taking it easy on him.)

Anyway, this actually sounds like good news to me...I like a little wind in the hair but Harumi says to me she and I need to practice going slowly...and perfectly. This is what they do in Japan. When I look sad...(I want to go behind a comet!) she says "do not worry errie....first you must go slow, then you go fast." (all in baby german..her English is apparently minimal.)
She takes us to slightly exotic places, but all with this tiny Hello Kitty voice so I am not worried. She giggles at everything I say...Du bist so rustig errie!!! Du Bist so lustig...- (you are so funny) And I follow her as closely as I can. So closely in fact that she goes ahead and finds herself in a previously hidden snow pile...falls forward from her waist so her face is in the snow and her arms are out like she is prostrate before the snow God. I am so concentrated on copying her that I follow her into the pile (Katia and Thomas see this, and cleverly turn away...) but I end up in EXACTLY the same position..arms out head in snow bent at waist. My skis pop off of course..and hers stay on. She is laughing so hard at me at this point...like why the hell are you copying THAT? Tut mir reid errie!! (sorry!) and puts my skis on like i am the Empress of Japan. Katia says she is just sorry she couldn't take a picture. Best part about skiing with a little Japanese woman is she carries chocolate and at the end when I am tired she pulls out five little candy bars. I take two.

We are so curious as to how the hell she got here: she showed up in Austria without a word of German. To take the written test she has to memorize the questions AND the answers. Then she takes the practical test for mountain guide...and is so awesome in the test on the mountain..some horrible chute from hell...that the guy falls in love with her and becomes her boyfriend. I am not kidding.

Her background was in racing when she was young and the Japanese, no surprise, break down the skiing technique to its tiny parts and then practice them again and again. She shows me how they learn to get into the ready position...and it takes about five minutes. Anyway I go alone with her the next day and I follow her without question under avalanche barriers, over rocks, past chutes that one really shouldn't fall down. But I am in my new ready position and I feel kind of stable...and besides we are just giggling away....errie so rustig!

These photos were taken after she had told me we would go on a little adventure.(ein Kreinen abentur errie) not something i usually embrace..but it is so so pretty. I have never been there and it is not difficult...a little weird to get to, but what can happen when you have her along?

I told her my brother lives in Jackson Hole and she said oooooohhh errie ...so beautiful!!! she would love to go...I really must find a way to put her in my suitcase, because everyone needs to meet her.

When we part we give each other this huge embrace and I tell her I hope her next clients get sick so I can go with her again. (soo rustig errie!!!) Strangely I feel like a much worse skier after spending time with her;that I am this total hacker. But there is always hope. Ready position might eventually be learned. My left shoulder might finally stay down on the right turn.

Oh errie she says you must just enjoy. But i enjoy this...spending the day around a woman like her. It is an honor. In fact I always get a little choked up when I see someone do something so well, with so much modesty..it literally makes my eyes get watery. Anyway she is out there people...get those hips in the ready position....practice it all day. Just that. xoxxooxo

Wolfie part 2

Hallo
So much to discuss...including the second and last day with Wolfgang. Lovely sunny day, fresh snow and Tricia resplendent in lip gloss ready for her second day with Fabio as we now call him.
In fairness, I should say that Tricia's take on this was that I was "hip checking" her out of the way to get Wolfie alone on the lift. While I admit that on the T bar i did leave her to fend for herself....it was for purely a matter of safety. Also I had to get him alone to find out where he was taking us so i could talk him out of it.
Unfortunately love was in the air all around Lech before....when gerold sent me to his friend to buy new boots. I took off my old boots and Philip, perhaps the sweetest man ever to walk the earth held my foot and said oh this can't be! then sold me a new pair that feel like clouds. I loved him. I loved him so much that when he asked in a loud voice how old I was and how much i weighed I gave him the tiniest little lie of what turned out to be 10 pounds. Now this is important because when they are setting the boots, they need really to know how you ski (I always say kind-a-badly) and how much you weigh. If either of these things are off, you will lose your skis more easily. So. Wolfie takes us into deep powder and it is so beautiful and Tricia keeps saying how beautiful it is and I am singing We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun, but the wine...something something...and it is all gay until i hit a tiny hidden bump and my ski pops off deep deep cannot find so incredibly tiring to find and I am panicking because handsome is now climbing up to help me with, i think I have this correct, his skis between his teeth. It is so deep, every time I try to stand I sink sink in and I think maybe they should just leave me here I have had a good life. Wolfie builds somehow a platform in the snow and perhaps an igloo too and i get it on again and we ski but I am really tired from all this, and then boom it happens again, because I gave my wedding date weight because who is going to know...but of course Wolfie knows and now I am busted. He casually asks me what number my bindings are set to, and i innocently answer and he takes my skis on the slope and I think I have this right, adjusts my bindings with his tongue. But I am tiiiiireeeed. And then Tricia who had been skiing behind me, helping me everytime like the faithful friend she is, falls herself and I speed past because I really cannot help her because I see the end in sight...a restaurant and if I hurry I can be there alone with Wolfie.
Christmas was elegant and pretty as always....Frederick got a good haul, none from Santa who he just never really bought into and I never had the heart to push. Unfortunately the dinner was extra slow, and I skipped the courses with goose liver so by 11 00 I had had about 12 glasses of champagne and a red beet boullion, calories: zero, so I am ready for bed. Christmas day we ski with the children and the Sellmans and it snows, and that night we go out in the woods to Frau Schneiders restaurant after the private mass she has arranged at the tiny old church in Zug. (elmar land) Chuck sits next to Eva and is so incredibly funny that she cannot stop laughing. She orders a foie gras appetizer before a main course of duck. Impressive. My father would had called this the opposite of short hitter. Chuck has the same reaction and turns to her and says I like you! And she doesn't get it at all but thinks he is hinting for some of her food, so she laughs and shares with him.
So the kids are soo sad to be separating, but the Sellmans are coming back in the Summer. They have totally completely fallen in love.
New guide tomorrow: the elusive, famous, Yeti like character. Japanese ski guide.

Lechy-Lech

Hello people!
Arrived in good order...a few days in Munich which are wonderful AND horrible with confusing sleep and moments when I wonder why we don¨t stay home-but the Schneider bus comes to get us and things start to look up. We arrived to sunshine...and big wet kisses from Katia and Gerold...and best of all, when we got to our room, little knocks on the door and Ida and Luis are hopping around in greeting and we feel like we are home. (Katia tells us that when Gerold told him Frederick was here, he said again and again: MY Frederick?!!)He is immediately eating at the Schneider table...only for family and VIPS (I have never sat there) and a sleep over. Poor eva and claus did not lay eyes on him for the first 24 hours.
Most fun development is Tricia and Chuck Sellman who are living in Paris for the year are spending the week in Lech. they have two kids, friends of chicos-age 8 and 12 and all three of them get into the same ski class and they wander back and forth between hotels and order topfen strudel at their own table every afternoon after class. Too much.
So we go skiing. thomas hires a teacher for the Sellmans and me .....and we get this man who says he has recently gotten over an accident where he was hit on the head, has only just gotten back his ability to speak German and no English whatsoever. Patricia is concerned. Especially because we are going out of bounds and we do not have Pieps to find us in case of avalanche and when he sees something bad like a rock or a hole (!) he says it really fast in German. and they say What DOES STEIN MEAN Ellie??!!! it is beyond ridiculous because it means rock. The last run is actually scary. We are in a place that Thomas and other good skiers from the hotel say we had no business being in, without this avalanche stuff...and we kind of knew it when we were there. But to confirm our suspicions, when we get back to apres ski in the warm bosom of Frau Schneider's bar, we look at the picture Gisbert has taken of the three of us, and it is a picture of the ground. Thomas now realizes we might have been in danger with a mildly retarded teacher in the outbacks and goes to gently get rid of him and hires anew. Above is a picture of new guide Wolfgang.
Tricia literally claps her hands together in glee when she sees what looks to me like a joke.....a harlequin romance novel rendition of "Wolfgang the ski guide"..She is so enamored with him in fact that she makes a fatal error of telling him: I really like to be pushed to the edge of my ability....She simply dose not understand why I am doing my normal spiel of telling the Austrian guides that I am paranoid...afraid of the back pack I have to carry with shovel..afraid of helicopters, afraid of everything and a danger to myself and others. She keeps piping in that we are decent...but the point is one must mellow them out...lower expectations dramatically and you will have a very hard day still. But no...Now I do not have Andrew and Margaret's lung capacity..but I am pretty used to this torture, and she says she has done absolutely zero exercise for the past year in France....and at the end of the day she tells me she is totally exhausted and can go no more and then Wolfgang drops off the edge into horrible horrible thick un-skiable snow for a nice long run to the bottom of the NEXT town over...meaning we are really fucking far from Lunch. I have no sympathy however because she got us into this and tell her to enjoy the view. She just called me from her bed, saying she is paralyzed from the waist down.
I think he had fun though....he was nice enough about my skiing, but says I need to work on the mental side. the trust-your-ski-guide side. Perhaps this is because I would periodically ask him if he was so so worried.

Tomorrow last day with Wolfgang...he has other clients...but Thomas says we can go with his...and all our little shovels.

Miss you!!!!!!