If you had asked me in October of 2025 if I’d be skiing this season my honest answer would have been, “I don’t know yet.” It was heartbreaking to say that and it was the truth. I just didn’t know at that point if I had it in my to ski. If I had the strength to ski after surviving an abusive marriage. If I had the mental or emotional capacity to ski. So much of my life was unknown at that point. I had just moved out of a house that I still own (I’ve blogged about that previously) with my abusive soon-to-be ex-husband. I was physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually empty. I had nothing to give and I I didn’t even know where I would ski if you had paid for my season pass somewhere. The mountain I had come to love as my home mountain for the past four years felt inaccessible because he was going to still be working there on the weekends. Yeah I could have gone midweek which as a local is for the most part how I ski but there were too many shared memories with him on that mountain. So much of my relationship with skiing and the memories that I had formed centered around him. While skiing had been something I wanted to get back to for a huge part of my adult life I really committed to it during my second marriage and our time together on the mountain was a key component to our relationship. I was in a state of deeply complicated grief around both our divorce and leaving a mountain that I had come to call home.

I decided to just give myself some time to rest and recuperate after my move into an apartment downtown which has in some many ways made my life easier. Living in downtown Chester is pretty damn sweet. I don’t know exactly when but there was a moment in November when I woke up feeling better. I woke up with the smallest ember of desire to return to the mountain. Which one though? I had said goodbye to my home mountain in September and I just didn’t feel like I could return, maybe ever. That remained to be seen. I talked with my daughter’s father, my first ex-husband, about the idea of skiing with our daughter on Thursdays instead of doing the ski program this year because this was their last full ski season before they depart to Australia. Since she was four they have skied together at Magic and she has progressed to a damn good skier at age ten. She is awesome to watch and loves it when I tell her to lead the way. “Ok mama, follow me,” are some of her favorite words. I scraped together the money from my savings and invested in a season pass at Magic.

I’m super lucky to live less than hour and in some cases 15-20 minutes to a number of outstanding east coast mountains. I always have from age 7 when my family moved us to Killington and I put my feet in my first set of ski boots. As a kid there were elements I loved about skiing but I didn’t yet fully understand the passion of it. That came much much later in my life. I had progressed greatly over the three seasons I spent on Okemo and by the time I finished my time there in February of last year I was skiing black diamonds with relative comfort (btw I’m not talking glades or double blacks, just straight up blacks.

I had always heard that Magic is a tough, steep mountain but I didn’t really understand why until I got there. In reading the history of it I learned that the man who founded the operation, Hans Thorner, chose that mountain in the 1950s because the steep terrain reminded him of his home in the Swiss Alps. Gulp. My first run was in early December when only a portion of the mountain was open at that point. I skied as often as I could during those first few weeks just running laps on runs that I could execute with confidence and only from the mid mountain chair. I had lost so much strength since the previous season due to some pretty horrific life circumstances that I just had to survive. My first few weeks on a new, unfamiliar mountain were a mix of joy at being able to return to skiing but also working through grief. The grief of leaving my former mountain, the grief of my second marriage not just ending but becoming something I had to flee from with a restraining order and a lawyer, the grief of not really knowing who I was at this current moment of my life, and the grief of knowing that in the spring I would be sending my daughter to the other side of the world without me. At times I felt like I was drowning in grief. I didn’t fully know it at that point but skiing became my life raft.

As the season went on I got stronger. I got more confident. More of the mountain opened and I started exploring more terrain. It wasn’t easy. Magic is in fact pretty damn steep and parts of it just scare the shit out of me. There were days riding up the lift that I genuinely wondered if I had made a mistake in picking this super challenging mountain. When those moments of self doubt and sadness crept in I just reminded myself that I wasn’t just doing this for me I was also doing this for my daughter so that we could ski together this year and have a few more memories before she leaves, and that kept me going. Mid season a new friend came into my life with whom we share a passion for the mountain. He has been a key factor in my deepening my connection with the sport, connecting with another mountain, and also my new home mountain. His feedback, knowledge, and friendship also helped me in working through my grief. I am deeply grateful for him and I hope we ski together more in the coming seasons. You learn a lot from skiing with someone who is more advanced than you and in the process you let go of fear.

There was a day on the mountain about a month ago when my daughter, her dad, and I were all on the mountain together and Summer took us down a blue with black segments. I didn’t love it. I puzzled it out, and I got through it but at the bottom I thanked her for taking us down it and told her to go have fun with her dad while I head back to some more open terrain. I know the importance of exploring terrain you don’t love (fucking moguls) and this season I’m just not there…next season I’d like to work on this and get some more instruction on how to execute them with better competency. This season was about getting back to the mountain and regaining my strength. What I actually learned that day is that I am a speed demon. Give me an open steep face any day of the week and I am happy girl. I want to feel the fluidity of my lower body gliding over snow and ice while keeping my lines as straight as possible all the while seeing how fast I can go without dying…and I do in fact die while on the mountain at least I will have died doing something I absolutely love. Speed is my drug of choice. I tolerate the discomfort of cold, the feeling of air choking me to the point of almost puking, and pain of burning quads to work through to the other side of rage where sheer joy resides. My top speed for the season: 36 mph. Fucking awesome.

We are now into spring ski season and I had my second best day on the mountain a couple of days ago. I’ve had some pretty sweet moments on this mountain so far and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season looks & feels. One of those moments was when one of the lift operators recognized me and said “hey it’s rune girl!” If you haven’t skied with me or seen pics of me on the mountain all my gear is covered with rune decals. It’s how I personalize my stuff and for me it’s another way to experience the living prayer of runes themselves. It also reflects some deeper philosophies around skiing, winter, learning a sport that is in fact more ancient than people realize, and my own spiritual beliefs as a shamanic practitioner. It’s a way to connect more deeply and someone noticing my runes felt good. It also felt like by showing up week after week it was a name that I earned. I’ve also advanced to a longer pair of skis which has once again deepened my appreciation for learning new gear and my ultimate value of being someone who is coachable…I wasn’t always this way.

I’ve had some pretty emotional moments this season on the mountain. I’ve processed a lot of grief. I’ve learned. I’ve shed so much heaviness from the past year and half of my life. I’ve welcomed new challenges and people. I’ve come to love Magic in a way that I hadn’t expected, from the way the sun tracks to the ravens that also call this mountain home, I now do too.