Amid the relentless wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, it feels somewhat strange to write a personal piece, maybe even a little self-indulgent. Yet the insanity around us does not make it any less valuable to look at ourselves, at our own lives. May we stand up for what we believe in a turbulent world, but at the same time may we also continue to be able find our inner strength, and peace.
So here’s a light, inner look: perhaps self-indulgence, but it helps keep me sane.
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My parents started me on skis when I was five or six. I learned to love winter. As a child I eagerly looked forward every November or December to the first fluffy, gently falling snowflakes. With my sister and my friends I stuck out my tongue to catch them, felt them touch and instantly melt into cold, pure water. When it got colder and the snow no longer melted on contact with the ground, I loved how it muffled sound, blanketed everything in the hushed stillness of cotton. Snowfalls also promised ski trips to local hills, occasionally to more distant mountains, to exhilaration.
When I became a father, I excitedly taught my own small children to ski, watched them turn into experts. When the kids became teenagers, and might have preferred spending time with their friends than with their wrong-generation dad, they already loved skiing enough to come along happily.
I am writing this from a mountainside in sunny central Mexico where I now spend most of my winters, overlooking a beautiful colonial city below. Yet I am returning north now, before it stops being cold. It is in time to put on my skis, to feel once again the thrill of those long sweeps down a mountain. Since turning 80, I am usually the oldest geezer on the hill, and my pace is more relaxed. In my teens, I chafed to spend as much time on the slopes as possible, arriving early and leaving late. Now I linger between the descents on the patios of slope-side chalets, relaxing with hot soup and a coffee, and let the steam rise against my face as I look out at breathtaking mountain panoramas.
My lips form a small, easy smile that doesn’t fade; there is nowhere else I need to be.
My favourite destination- Lake Louise in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. Photo- Reuben Krabbe
I’m a Canadian who actually likes winter. So whatever am I doing in Mexico, as a snowbird? The mountains are lovely, but the ski conditions are terrible!
In the early 1930s, newly married and hungry for adventure, my parents, Jules and Chris, pack up a tent and sleeping bags, mount a tandem motorbike, and travel from Toronto to Mexico. There are no fast, straight superhighways at this time. If there had been, they would not have taken them. They want to see the world, so take the long route. They point their motorcycle east rather than sensibly south, and drive to Mexico via Quebec, New Brunswick and Maine. At night they camp and cook their meals along the roadside. They chance upon Guanajuato, a Spanish colonial silver-mining town tucked into a mountain gorge several hundred miles north-west of Mexico City. They fall in love with the beauty, the colour, the warm, family-centred culture. When they retire, they build a house there.
Over the years, on brief holidays from work, I visited them, rode horses with my dad in the countryside, went to wonderful concerts (there were two symphony orchestras in a city of 75,00 people), and made good friends among Mexicans and ex-pats. In short, I fell in love with “Mexico’s dream city.” (See video)
Magical Guanajuato. Photo- PN
On one visit, Dad, by now in his late 80s, was explaining to me the house upkeep, the complicated legalities of banking and property ownership in Mexico. Preparing me for the future. While he was creative and adventurous, he was also a retired accountant, ever organized and meticulous.
“When Mom and I die, you’ll sell the house,” he said.
“No, Dad, I don’t think so. I would want to keep it.” He looked at me, surprised, puzzled. “I’ve come to love it here. Guanajuato, the house. I speak Spanish now, love the people.”
“It’s not a good idea. It’s way too complicated and the details can drive you crazy. You can’t trust a lawyer here not to lose your original documents...”
“That’s okay. I’ll keep coming here.”
They died in old age, and my wife Renée and I have kept the house on the mountainside. Each time we return, we marvel anew at the vistas, smile at the vibrant life in the winding, colourful callejones, alleyways, of the colonial city. We see good friends, attend concerts, hike in the hills. In Light and Colour, Mood and Mind I wrote about what the sunlight and rich colours do for the spirit.
I return to Canada, to a reverse culture shock: water that you can safely drink coming out of one tap, and from the other, instant hot water. I no longer take these for granted. I marvel, too, at the relative transparency of officialdom, of universal, government-paid medical care. And I head to the mountains to ski. No longer do I choose the steepest and most rugged “black diamond” runs. Skiing through the trees hors piste, off the trails, used to put a grin on my face; now the thought just makes me picture a hospital gurney, broken bones. Yet on the normal, beautiful ski trails I am a bird, swooping.
A snowbird, on snow
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