Big Nature

I am in Eastern WA and boy is there a lot of nature here. We are skiing in Winthrop, about a million miles of trails and I have not skied AT ALL this season so I am rather sore. Like crippled. But we are near the Sun Mountain Lodge, which if you have not been here is a gustatory destination, let me tell you. You ski all day until your ass and thighs and arms are going to fall off and then you fall into a coma by the fire and then you go to the lodge up the hill and eat a fabulous dinner while looking out over the whole valley. Oh, and you take a lot of tylenol and drinking wine helps too. We have seen eagles, woodpeckers, little rodent things, a whole bunch of deer and tonight heard an owl as we were staggering back to our 'chalet', an itty bitty cabin with a fireplace and a double bed to become comatose on. The stars are fab too, like I said, a massive amount of nature.

So I am a serviceable skier and there are groomed trails here so I plod along, falling occasionally. Everyone else is a 'skate skier' holy mother of god. They have skis that are about a centimeter wide and very pointy. Then they kinda run along the track. If I tried this, I would be in the hospital even tho I pretend I don't do it because I 'have the wrong equipment'. But there is hardly anyone here except for these white mountains all around and this crazy blue sky.

In the itty bitty chalet, I listen to a new CD a client made me of Tibetan monks singing or what ever you call it and bells and horns and lie on my face on the bed because my whole body hurts.

I brought along a bunch of suicide/trauma books and haven't even opened one. Instead I am catching up on old NYT book reviews. My theory: read the book reviews and pretend you read the book. It's almost as good.

My writing group rocks my world, even when I bring in a poem that 'needs work'. We are going to Burning Word to hear Rebecca read. I think we should make asses of ourselves but I might be alone in this desire. This desire. Ah, desire.