People have mistaken my height for athleticism, but I didn’t even have that until I was thirteen. Before that glorious year, I was relegated to the “husky” section, which is clothing not for dogs but overweight children. When I was in sixth grade, my mother—tall, lean, athletic—forced me to go on runs with her. On the drive to the park, I’d picture a classmate witnessing me panting rosy-cheeked, coughing up blood, oozing snot, crying. This fear was worse than the run itself, but one day, I found a brilliant way out.
“Sign me up for a sport,” I said. “A team sport.” I figured I could just blend into the background.
“Really?” Mom said. “Which sport?”
I wasn’t prepared for this very predictable question. “Uh, football?” I didn’t even know the rules, but soccer and basketball involved constant running, and baseball wouldn’t be enough running for her.
Football was a nightmare from day one. In every lap or sprint we ran, I was last. And not just last, but so far behind the nearest guy that you wouldn’t even know I was actually part of the team. Coach Kelly asked Mom if I had a physical disability, given how little my feet left the ground as I “ran.”
The only thing I despised more than running was tackling. “Get low, Avakiantz!” Coach Kelly would shout. “Low man wins! Be the hammer, not the nail!” I’d get nailed so many times that the next day my arms would be shrouded in bruises, which garnered concern from my teachers. Eventually, in self-defense, I started yanking the facemask of my tackling partner—literally the dirtiest move in the sport. But I was just trying to survive.
My position was Benchwarmer, so I had no reason to learn the rules. During games, as the coaches and other players hollered at our offense to get the first down, I wondered, First down? Don’t they mean touchdown?
“What if we try winter sports?” Mom asked. Like the woman didn’t know me at all.
We started with ice skating, which required far too much balance, coordination, and courage. In high school and college, my dates always wanted to ice skate. Why? Was it really that fun, really that romantic? As with running, I couldn’t risk humiliating myself in front of people I knew—let alone the girl.
My wife Jade is no exception to the rule that women love to—need to—ice skate. When I expressed my reluctance in our first few years together, she suggested we go skiing or snowboarding instead. Which is like a vegan turning down a glass of milk, only to be offered a bloody slice of prime rib.
“The snow is soft,” she reasoned. “It won’t hurt nearly as much when you fall.”
“Our rent is expensive,” I reasoned back. “And yet you always seem to want to be outside.”
I caved, and that week we drove to the Summit of Snoqualmie, a popular spot an hour east of Seattle. I knew the place well, having visited several times as a child with family members and their friends. My routine was to trudge to a cabin and drink hot chocolate while the adults frittered away the hours as if we were all going to live forever.
One problem with winter sports is that if you don’t already have your own gear, your day starts with a DMV-like wait at the rental center. The hordes of bodies with their oversized coats left little room to breathe the already hot and humid air. This was also my last chance to decide between skis and a snowboard.
I approached that decision like I approach every decision: logically. With skis, I envisioned myself doing the splits and tearing my scrotum. Alternatively, the ski poles could slip out of my grasp and puncture my…you guessed it. At the same time, I wasn’t crazy about my legs and feet becoming useless strapped to a snowboard; if someone were to, say, chase me, on skis I could at least sort of hobble away.
Suddenly, I remembered that in Mr. Brown’s 5th grade class, I’d written a story about jumping out of a helicopter on a snowboard. Thus, I had my tiebreaker. Another dilemma solved logically.
The last thing you grab at the rental center is an optional helmet. I considered saving the ten-dollar rental fee, guessing I wouldn’t be moving quickly enough to need a helmet, but ultimately decided not to risk it. We joined the line for the ski lift, when I recalled something pretty inconvenient: my fear of heights.
“They still don’t have seat belts on those things?” I whined. “What if I fall out?” And land on my scrotum?
Jade groaned. “You’re not going to fall out! Now, strap in your front foot, and push with your back foot to move. When we jump off, rest the back foot where it would normally go, but don’t strap it in, and slide…” She went on like that as I nodded and crept to the front of the line. It was like Coach Kelly telling me to get low: wasted breath.
I watched the riders in front of us hop onto the ski lift, studying the God-given gracefulness I so sorely lacked. When it was our turn, I took a step, slipped, fell in the path of the incoming lift, and was nearly decapitated. The staff must have thought I had been decapitated, because they immediately stopped all the lifts. Probably punched a big red button installed for people just like me: UNATHLETIC INCIDENT.
With Jade’s help, I got up and onto the now stationary ski lift. As we gained elevation in silence, my left leg—holding the entire weight of the dangling snowboard—felt like it was about to be torn off.
“Get ready,” Jade said.
We approached the exit, and I braced. GET LOW! GET LOW, AVAKIANTZ! I jumped, slid for a moment, lost my balance, fell, and slammed the back of my head on ice. As I crawled off to the side with my head throbbing, I thanked God I was wearing a helmet.
“You okay?” Jade asked, looking more amused than concerned. “You’re…not very good at this.”
I clenched my teeth and remembered she was likely my future wife. If I berated her, argued that I had already known I would be terrible at this, Jade might counter with the logic equivalent of a piledriver: that I’d fallen victim to a defeatist, self-fulfilling prophecy. Then where would I be?
With my mother, there had been little choice, and her efforts were not wasted: thanks to her, exercise has been a regular part of my life. But was I wrong for drawing the line as an adult? For knowing my limits, and growing only further convinced—as all around me, children dismounted from the ski lift with ease—that this activity was not for me?
“Hey, where are you going?” I asked.
Jade turned around and shook her head. “You’re zoning out about something—I know that look. I’ll come back up by the time you’re ready to go down.” And she was off.
With my head still vibrating, I fastened my back foot and inched down the mountain with my board positioned horizontally, the way Jade had instructed. Like Sisyphus, in reverse. Move your hips one way, then the other, over and over. By the end of the run, I’d fallen another three times. I didn’t see Jade, so I unstrapped my feet and went off in search of a medic.
“Do I have a concussion?” I asked one kind stranger. He hurried away with his hands raised, as if I had offered him life insurance. So, I asked another, and another. “Hello, sir. Can you look into my eyes, please?”
