minor catastrophes

Last time I wrote about skate skiing, someone asked me what it is...Here's me skating in Yellowstone National Park. As you can see, skating requires pushing off to the side on one ski, while gliding forward on the other. It's really fun!

I first met Shawn six years ago at a Nordic ski race in Neihart, Montana, in the middle of nowhere, two hours north of our home. The Klister Klassic had become a favorite, due to the fact that it attracts only a handful of good racers (thus increasing my chances of placing well), always has great door prizes and a pot full of homemade chili at the finish.

Shawn was there with a buddy I knew as a coach in Bozeman who was also a former college racer. I beat Shawn, but not his buddy, who came in just ahead of me in first place. After the race, his buddy made a point of introducing me to Shawn, who was also in the midst of a divorce. I made polite chitchat over chili, walking away with two impressions of him: Dude skis slower than me, and he has really crooked teeth.

Fast forward a little over a year later, to the second time we met. We were at a mutual friend’s slide show of her travels in India, which was a crowded potluck gathering. I stood in the food line behind Shawn, and he turned and handed me a plate. I recognized him and noticed some things I hadn’t seen at the race, hidden beneath his ski hat and clothes...He had a nice head of sandy-colored hair, and blue, blue eyes that matched his button-down shirt.

We funneled out at the end of the food line and someone started talking to us both and said, “Have you two met before?”

“I think so,” I said, careful not to jump in with anything man-bruising like, “Yeah. We met at that one race where I whooped your ass? But anyways, I hardly remember. Probably because you were BEHIND me.”

“Yes, we have,” Shawn jumped in. “I met you at the Klister Klassic. You beat me.”

He said it just like that.

No, “Yeah you beat me. But I was really off on the wax that day,” or “I shouldn’t have worked out so hard the day before.”

He wasn’t embarrassed. Yet he had an unexpected sweetness beneath that quiet confidence and all of the sudden, it hit me like a cliché. Thunderbolts, a bee to honey, whatever you want to call it, but it was sudden and dramatic and it has never left me to this day. I wanted him. Not in a lustful way (that was later), but that odd, tingly sensation where you look at a near stranger and wonder what it would feel like if they wrapped their arms around you while you rested your head on their shoulder and memorized their smell forever. Like that.

But there was still a potential deal-breaker before I could indulge such a fantasy. I took a deep breath, and started babbling about my sons. Surely his buddy had warned this childless man that I had children? I paused to take a breath, and I swear he asked this question in slow motion: “SO. How many children do you have?”

 I looked down at the plate of food I hadn’t touched and felt queasy. “Three?”

“Three?” he repeated.

“Yes,” I blinked. “Three. Boys.”

I waited for him to politely excuse himself to go talk to someone else, but then he started telling stories about his three nephews whom he clearly adored and my heart started tapping Morse code to my brain: You Have Got to Be Shitting Me.

During the slide show we sat in the back row in the dark, whispering back and forth, unable to help our blatant rudeness. We told each other about our traveling dreams, and I can still remember how his breath on my ear made me feel giggly.

When it was time for me to leave I made a show of getting ready, and Shawn came over and told me he’d like to see me again. I tried not to let loose with the sloppy-dog dorky-assed grin fighting to take over my face.

Two days later I happened to see him at the annual West Yellowstone Rendezvous Ski Race, where I was racing the 25-kilometer skate, and he was handing water and energy gels to his buddy who was doing the full 50-kilometer skate ski marathon. Shawn shouted encouragement to me at several points on the race course, and unfortunately missed two scheduled hand-offs to his buddy, who ended up dropping out of the race and good-naturedly accused Shawn of being “distracted.”

Anyway, all this is to say that Nordic skiing is a special part of my history with Shawn. I’m fairly certain he’s going to beat me this time at the Klister Klassic (two weeks from now), as his technique has improved and I haven’t been able to keep up with him when we do speed workouts together. It’s fine. I’m not letting him out of my site without a fight, but really, there are no losers in this race anymore. Just me out there doing my best with him, feeling good.

Okay, I promise not to make you look at too many cutesy-scmootzie pictures of us...Just thought I could maybe get away with it on this post.