鈥淚 love that you work at 国产吃瓜黑料 but aren鈥檛, you know, 国产吃瓜黑料-y,鈥 an acquaintance who shall not be named told me earlier this year. I get variations of this comment a lot.听I live and work among people who鈥檝e been on ski patrol, undertaken weeks-long backpacking trips, and handled Class V rapids without any help. I have done none of those things, but recently, I was nearly killed by a ski lift (my backpack got stuck,听and the emergency-stop bar malfunctioned鈥攏ot my fault!). I also barfed in a lift line (motion sickness鈥攄riving and skiing鈥檚 fault!) and cried on a ridge because I was too paralyzed by fear to ski off a cornice (my fault, from all angles!). And skiing is only one of the sports I started learning at age 22 when I moved to New Mexico to work for this magazine.
In the five years since, I鈥檝e also learned how to climb, backpack, and trail run without hurting myself, and I鈥檝e taken some听baby steps in biking and paddling. To me these sports are fine arts, each with their own special world of gear, rules, and lingo. Relatedly, they are also crash courses in trying to gracefully feel听stupid in front of other people.
The outdoorsy types in my life have been kind to me as I鈥檝e learned the ropes,听but it does bother me a little when I mess up听or can鈥檛 hang听or otherwise demonstrate that I am not one of them. When people听talk about being outdoorsy, there鈥檚 a lot to unpack. Everyone sits somewhere on the active spectrum and has their own reasons for being there, with personal preferences and socioeconomic and health-related considerations all wrapped up in it. But what I鈥檝e learned from my own experience is that it takes finesse to be a good beginner in the land of hardcore athletes.
When people听talk about being outdoorsy, there鈥檚 a lot to unpack.
It turns out that at 国产吃瓜黑料,听saying you ran cross-country pretty well in high school is like sharing your SAT score any time after graduating high school: irrelevant enough to get an awkward look. I鈥檝e spent most of my time at this magazine听forensically picking apart all the reasons I didn鈥檛 arrive here a skilled outdoorswoman. For one thing, give me a break, I grew up in Florida. This is an imperfect but decent excuse for not knowing anything about mountains and the activities you can do on one. Florida made me appreciate nature, but in a slow and aimless manner, like floating on my back in the ocean for as long as I wanted听or watching a lizard die on a muggy day after my dog sliced its throat open by accident. I was the only unathletic one of three siblings growing up, with not enough hand-eye coordination for even kindergarten ballet. But I was bookish! And you know those kids who devour Into Thin Air and pluckily find their way onto a mountaineering expedition later in life? Also not me!
Still, by the end of college, when I got my job at 国产吃瓜黑料, I certainly had the most outdoor cred of my family: I liked running and had gone on quite a few camping trips听(with borrowed gear). I love hearing how my friends鈥 early exposure to the outdoors built the foundation for their current, supercool adventure lifestyles: maybe they scaled a grand peak as they were toted听in a BabyBj枚rn or took on a blue-square ski run听while attached听to their parent with听a cute little听leash. But adventure sports are not an inherited skill for me. My mom and dad grew up in Chicago and Saint听Louis, respectively, where听rock climbing and skiing were not really a thing. My dad also has a chronic health condition and听started losing the use of his legs when I was six. We just were not the family that did big hikes together. I had a wonderful childhood,听but I鈥檝e found that family members induct many people into favorite sports early鈥攊t helps to start before you can even walk, right?听
Are you exhausted listening to my excuses for not doing sports? I am, too.听It鈥檚 mostly a coping mechanism.听I鈥檇 rather believe that all the accomplished outdoorspeople just had some lifelong advantage over me, so听I don鈥檛 have to听take responsibility for the many times I wasn鈥檛 resourceful enough to do cooler things outdoors. I brace for impact when I ask good skiers how long they鈥檝e been at it, because what if they also didn鈥檛 learn to ski before 23 but simply听picked it up faster?
This may come as听a shock, but I have not yet picked up听a sport quickly. I always start in 鈥渏ust happy to be here鈥 mode,听like a lil鈥櫶齡olden retriever on skis, desperate for instruction, encouragement, and snacks. I expect nothing, I鈥檓 here to have fun! As I get more confident, it becomes kind of insidious, because now I expect myself to keep up and will absolutely hurt my own feelings if I don鈥檛. Someone once asked if I鈥檇 be OK on a bumpy blue run, and I almost cried into my goggles:听Do I look like a beginner? (It took me a while to get down the bumpy blue run, fine.)听It鈥檚 not really about competitiveness; it just seems like听if you love doing something and do it enough times, you get to听go faster or achieve harder things. This is how progress and goals work, no?
I try to remind myself that learning to hang on to a wall or zooming down a mountain for the first time in my twenties听is something to savor, not a personal failure.
Being a beginner has revealed this key flaw in my thinking: I both desire and assume a linear relationship between loving a sport and getting good enough at it to fit in.听Not to mention that听sports like skiing and climbing presented me with activities where听everyone looked cool just by doing it well. I want to look cool! Not attaining that has sometimes brought out the ugly side of my ego. I get bored with being the slowest and the least impressive鈥擨 still have fun, but it鈥檇 be more fun if people paid attention to me.听
Instead of beating myself up, I鈥檓 trying to get to know myself and be a little more encouraging. I鈥檓 learning the distinction between self-deprecation (much easier than showing people how badly I want to get better) and productive levity. Once, staring down a tree-filled run and knowing I鈥檇 need to whip out some knee-destroying pizzas, I just听renamed it the Florida Snowplow, which helped听me commit to each turn. I鈥檓 trying to treat my personal history of the outdoors with affection鈥攊t鈥檚 part of the reason I can鈥檛 mountain bike or navigate for shit, but it鈥檚 also why I have an appreciation for reptiles and bugs that really enhances nature outings.听And I try to remind myself that learning to hang on to a wall or zooming down a mountain for the first time in my twenties听is something to savor, not a personal failure.
One of the best parts of all this is that听forcing others to hang out with you to听teach you听is not just encouraged听but pretty necessary. The thing about knowing lots of hardcore athletes is that the really skilled people are usually the ones who most want to help beginners love that sport. I have a theory that听the progression of ego is shaped like a plateau: it rises with skill at first, peaks at the intermediate stage, and then starts descending as you听get听better, so much better that your听accomplishments precede you听or just speak for themselves. Or maybe, it鈥檚 dawned on me, skilled athletes are听so听generous to beginners like me because they鈥檙e obsessed with their sport鈥攖hey want to do it all the time and pass along their obsession听just because they love it so much. On bad days and beginner-to-intermediate-angst days, I try to be more like those people.