My Perfect Day
I just had the most perfect day. Here’s the background.
I’m out in Colorado on a semi-vacation week trying to enjoy some skiing, solitude and time to catch up on a number of projects. The weather has been nice and the conditions have been pretty good considering that the area in which I am staying hasn’t had much snow in the last week.
Then last night the powder came. If you’re a skier, you know the feeling. Sitting in your condo watching the snow fall, knowing that tomorrow is going to be a “powder day.”
I got up early to make it on to the lifts early at Vail and to head for the back bowls. After two lift rides, there I was at the top of Sun Up Bowl looking down into a giant field of fresh, untracked snow. I could barely wait.
I jumped in and immediately I was up to knees in powder floating down the mountain. It had been 10 years since I skied in the back bowls of Vail and back then the powder and the terrain were quite a challenge. But in the interim, I spent many winters training and working on my powder skiing. In an instant, I felt all the hard work had paid off.
No fear, no hesitation, just the pure joy of cutting fresh turns in the powder under the beautiful sunshine skies of Colorado. I was engulfed by the pure physical experience. Total focus and concentration (mind and body) on the moment. Followed by the joy of achievement as I reached the bottom of the bowl and looked back up at my fresh tracks.
I push myself pretty hard in my professional life. But I can only sustain that drive by giving myself this kind of open, full-body, in-the-moment experience. It’s in these moments, when I am able to drop the thinking and connect with the visceral, that I experience the greatest rejuvenation.
Perfect powder days in Vail don’t come often enough (at least not for me right now). But, when they do come, they provide a wonderful reminder of the power of being fully in the moment and they help me to recommit to meditation practice in order to find the beauty of the moment more often.
May your days be filled with many such moments. And if you haven’t had a chance to ski powder in Vail yet, GO FOR IT!
