The Internal Powday Clock: A Ski Bum Connection with the Snow

It's 9:30 at night.
I have no trouble passing out.
Thanks to my bedtime glass of Whistlepig and the constant pre-dawn wake-up calls, my eyes close pretty much as soon as my head hits the pillow.
I move my legs so that they curl around the eleven-year old golden retreiver snuggled on top of the comforter at the bottom of the bed.
I begin to dream the skier's dream.

What feels like a full night later, I roll over and my eyes are as wide as little buttons.
I check the time on my phone.
It's bright techno blueish light blinds me like Spock checking his machines.
I blink as I make out the time.
23:00
Seriously?

My curtains are closed and the room is pitch black
except for the trippy little night light
that we put on so that I don't trip over my pile of long johns
scattered halfhazardly all over the floor on my side of the bed.

I can still hear
the classical music
playing lightly in the background
that we set to a 120 minute timer.

I sigh in frustration and make sure that I'm not smushing anybody's arm or tail.
Closing my eyes, I hope that this time I will sleep until the buzzer.

It's around 2 o'clock the next time I roll over.
I can feel the tears start to well up in my eyes.
How am I gonna have any energy to skin up in the morning
if I cannot manage to get beyond a single REM cycle?
I look down at my feet
to see Vespi sleeping peacefully with her head between her paws.
I can feel the boyfriend breathing rhythmically beside me.
Why can't I sleep?
The frustration begins to eat at me from the inside,
I roll over and somehow I pass out once again.

While most people believe that being a ski bum involves hours on snow alternated with time spent washing dishes at the local pub, there is so much more than that.

There is something in the blood,
something as intrinsic as life itself,
where the spirit of winter meshes with my internal being.

A Ski Bum doesn't need
to look out the window
to know
that it is snowing on the other side.

We can feel the stillness,
that wintery calm,
that overtakes the world as the flakes fall silently to the ground.

Or the snowflakes that blast against the side of the window.
We feel those, too

For some reason I cannot explain,
My body knows when it is snowing.

My internal powday clock wakes me up,
And I go skiing.

It is as simple as that.

May You Find the Spirit of the Mountains Within You,
FemaleSkiBum