Skiing makes me feel dumpy. Coming from the flatlands, it always looked like a rich man’s sport, which, I suppose it is when you have to fly far away to find an actual mountain. But in the flatlands, it’s an even more distant idea. Snow comes, and visions enter our mind of lithe bodies, painted in tight brand name (what is a skiing brand name?) ski fashion, blond hair (they’re always blond) streaming behind them as them flit side to side down fluffy white mountains.
And I, eating sausage and pierogies and sloshing through the slushy snow and mud aftermath in bulky layers and clunky rubber boots like a surly Russian peasant in spring marching out to milk the cow again. I don’t even make it to the lodge. Put me on that hillside and I’m inching down on my butt repeating the mantra “no health insurance, no health insurance, no health insurance”. Isn’t this how Sonny died?
I pretend I would hate to be one of those people with enough money, insurance, and hair dye to be one of those bodies, but this isn’t really the truth. I came from the flatlands where we are stoic, reliable, reserved, tame, if a little bit dumpy. We know the truth, and we know not to speak it. You don’t need the truth to go out and milk the cow. You just do it.
I bet that’s really where Nike got its motto from. Sure, they paint pictures of super human athletes blah blah blah, but I bet they really got their inspiration from the Midwest. Just go out and do what needs to be done. No protestations, no hesitation, and least of all, no truth. You swallow all that and just do it. It’s not lithe or sexy or brand name (unless that brand name is Nike), but it’s probably how we’ll survive the end of the world as we know it, and it’s definitely how I survive growing produce in the cold.