Skippress - Index

Skippress - SkiPress US Vol.7 No.3 - Index

FAMILY THERAPY
Photo: Okemo Mountain Resort
8 EASTERN SECTION
Sulking to Okemo
Mom and daughter. Skiing together. Family values. Happy faces.
Which one will survive?
From this... to this...
Photo: Ski Press
BY MOIRA McCARTHY
My teenage daughter is sulking in the back seat, iPod turned so high to
Kanye West I can feel the vibration. We are close, my youngest daughter
and I, but there is nothing a 15-year-old hates more than being dragged
away from friends by her mom.
Tough. I’m set on us skiing together. So she’s brooding, I’m driving, and
ahead of us, Okemo is waiting.
We arrive at the spanking new Jackson Gore base area, and she skulks in behind
me. No bag schlepping here; a doorman takes care of all our organized chaos.
Up in our room she raises an eyebrow — she has her own loft to retreat to
(where, no doubt, she’ll text her life away). I watch a movie; she barely comes
down from her loft. Will she deign to ski? I wonder as I doze off.
Morning comes, and surprisingly, I don’t have to drag her out of bed. We
toast a quick bagel each, pop into our ski boots, grab our gear at the slopeside
ski valet and hop on the lift. She’s still ornery, but I’m jazzed. The snow
looks good (it’s Okemo; the snow always looks good).
We take a quick cruiser down, getting our legs under us. Back on the lift,
she actually speaks. “What’s that over there?” she asks, pointing to some
new advanced terrain.
“Our next run!” I reply, and we head to Tuckered Out, a great challenge of a
trail. I let her ski ahead of me and playfully fi gure-eight all her turns. We stop,
and I point back at the lovely marks we’ve left in the snow. She has goggles
on, but do I see a tiny bit of glee in her jaded teenage eyes?
Next run we head over to Okemo central, where halfway up the mountain
So she’s brooding, I’m driving,
and ahead of us, Okemo is waiting.
we can smell the waffl es cooking. She leads us to the tiny woodsy side trail
that she loved as a small child. She takes the trail as she did back then,
dodging in and out of the trees. I follow, pretending, as I did back then,
that she’s leading me somewhere that’s easy for her but almost over my
head. At the end we pop out into the sunshine.
That night means a luscious dinner at the Coleman Tavern, where my
daughter orders us Tabletop Smores for desert.
Then, strangely, something happens. She smiles. And says, “Let’s go to the
outdoor pool together.”
I know when the weekend ends, the iPod will be back on, and she’ll be
texting complaints to her friends. But my youngest and I have a secret: we
really like being together. And Okemo is our witness.
Photo: Okemo Mountain Resort