ALL WHO WANDER

Snowplowing Past Sibling Rivalry to Seek the Meaning of Life

PERCHED UNSTEADILY ON the chairlift beside my semiobsessive big brother, I try to decide whether each throb in my right foot corresponds to its own bone in the iron-maiden confines of my ski boot. I reach 43 throbs/bones before a 30-mph gust of air jet-streamed from the Arctic rattles the chairlift. Fortunately, I have very cleverly frozen myself to the seat and so cannot fall.

I goggle a look at my beloved brother, a lawyer whose taxes way exceed my annual salary. Dave has the self-discipline of a Navy SEAL synchronized swim team. He once pedaled his 10-speed bike 300 miles on one good leg after taking a fall, stoically ignoring my panted pleas to call mom to come pick us up. Now he has a ski condo, and snowboards gracefully in 15 feet of fresh powder. Most days he sleeps four hours and runs 8 miles. I have to nap if I so much as skim his day planner.

Not that I've got any, like, sibling rivalry issues. I mean, here I am-strapped to skis for the first time since college. I even brought my two teena ge sons so Dave could teach them the edgy art of snowboarding, while I snowplowed down the hill on very uncool skis. Honest, I have not a single sibling issue: I'm a grown man-not some 7-year-old with a helplessly skewed view of the supernatural powers of a 9-year-old.

I spent much of the day investigating the strangely altered physics of skiing.

Turns out, the only thing that hasn't changed since college is my big brother. Even then, he would bomb through the mogul fields, then stand and wait for me. He's like a crazy person who somehow got his brain circuits cross-wired, so pain makes him happy and relaxation makes him anxious. Now some 25 years later, he remains the worst possible guide for an unsteady skier. He inevitably leads me down the steepest, iciest, windiest runs, assuming I share his sad need for physical pain and mortal danger to feel convincingly alive. But Dave remains the one constant in an altered

world. Even fundamental laws of ski physics have changed. To wit: Gravitational constant has changed: I accelerated faster and fell harder (x + x + 2b²). This change apparently does not affect teenagers (2(cool)).

Moguls have magnetic cores: The humps of snow on steep runs that used to merely amuse me now irresistibly attract ski tips so that even when I try to detour a mogul, I plow into the invisible crosshair on the center of the bump.

Ski tips have mini black holes: Someone put ittybitty black holes in the front of my skis, no doubt intending to keep me from flying off into space. Except now the tips attract each other, which no doubt explains the snowplow ruination of my Stem Christy intentions.

The coolness polarity of skis has flipped: I used to look really, really spiffy on skis (James Bondish). Heck, I used to look good in tight ski pants. Now I look odd, especially in Dave's Russian ski patrol hat with the earflaps. Turns out, only people on snowboards (like my brother and sons) look impressive (Vin Dieselish). I think this is because the Earth's magnetic poles are currently in the process of flipping.

I could go on. Suffice to say that by the end of the day, I have clinched my status as a wobbly dork and my sons are jumping moguls and saying things like "Dave is really cool."

Even so, I feel a swollen, throbbing survivor's pride as I sit safe by the fire that night as a snowstorm tests the double-pane windows.

Then Dave exclaims, "Let's cross-country ski the meadow!"

"Now?" say I, too tired to interject the necessary incredulity.

"Great idea," chorus my boys.

Unaccountably, I soon find myself bundled up, strapped to skis and coasting across the dark meadow. Dave leads us through the fresh snow with my boys in line and me at the rear, all of us moving in perfect harmony. My breath makes a cloud of crystals, and the snow crunches like a lover's whisper. Suddenly, my feet don't hurt, my ego doesn't throb and I feel a strange surge of brotherly bonding. Staring up at the slow motion fall of the enormous flakes, I cannot tell whether they are falling or I am floating upward. Life makes perfect sense. My soul swells up.And for that moment in the pitch dark, I look just as cool as my big brother.