21Feb

F‑ck Fifty-one

• Saved in: Cross Country Skiing, Golf, Hobbies, Personal Essay, Writers, Writing Life
• by Chris Orcutt
• with Comments Off on F‑ck Fifty-one

This morn­ing, to cel­e­brate my birth­day and the fact that I’m prob­a­bly in the best shape of my life since I was 17, I went cross-coun­try ski­ing alone at a local state park (James Baird). Any­one who knows me or has fol­lowed my blog for a while knows there’s noth­ing unusu­al about this. Indeed, it’s axiomat­ic: If there’s snow on the ground with­in 100 miles of where Chris Orcutt lives, chances are he’s out there cross-coun­try ski­ing on it.

Any­way, while I was ski­ing this morn­ing, climb­ing up and glid­ing down the rolling park hills, ski­ing off-trail far away from the machine-made path, my 76-year-old father, Al, hap­pened to show up at the park as well.

Al’s been ski­ing for 25 or 30 years and was out there this morn­ing for an hour of exer­cise. I spot­ted him a quar­ter-mile away or so. He was head­ing for a fork in the trail, so I picked up the pace to cut him off. Sud­den­ly I saw him stop in the dis­tance and had no idea why. He was watch­ing me. I raced the rest of the dis­tance, run­ning up the snow-cov­ered hills with a brisk her­ring­bone step, and zip­ping down the oth­er side. When I caught up to him he gave a start.

-

-

“What’s wrong, Dad?” I asked.

“Oh, Chris,” he said in his inim­itable Downeast Maine accent, “that’s you! I didn’t even rec­og­nize you! I thought you were a pro­fes­sion­al Nordic ski­er out there, like some of the guys I’ve seen up at Lake Placid.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “That might be the nicest com­pli­ment you’ve ever giv­en me.” (Although he’s been equal­ly com­pli­men­ta­ry of my nov­els as well.)

“I mean it,” he said. “You’re doing every­thing right out there, and so smoothly—gliding along like you were born on these things.” He picked up one foot with the ski attached.

We skied for an hour togeth­er, as we have just about every day this sea­son while there’s been snow on the ground, and then we went our sep­a­rate ways. We’ll prob­a­bly meet up again tomor­row.

-

-

Here’s the thing: I’ve been cross-coun­try ski­ing for about 22 years. This year, how­ev­er, every­thing has clicked and I’ve gone to a new lev­el in my skills. After hun­dreds and hun­dreds (prob­a­bly thou­sands of hours) over the past 22 years, all of the ele­ments have come togeth­er: the prac­tice on the trail (includ­ing ski­ing through bliz­zards); study­ing books on the sub­ject and watch­ing videos on it; my year-round strength train­ing; the yoga and TB12 flexibility/pliability work I’ve been doing for the past 5 years or so; my sobri­ety; my men­tal matu­ri­ty and for­ti­tude; and the self-direc­tion and self-dis­ci­pline I’ve devel­oped from 30 years as a pro­fes­sion­al writer—all of these dis­parate ele­ments have coa­lesced to take my cross-coun­try ski skills to a new lev­el.

-

-

As I was dri­ving home from the park, my arms and legs burn­ing from hav­ing just skied 7 or 8 miles in two hours in 20-degree weath­er, I reflect­ed on the fact that short­ly after mid­night today I turned 51 years old. I glanced at myself in the rear-view mirror—my rud­dy cheeks, the sweat run­ning down my head—and said out loud, “You know what, Chris? Fuck fifty-one.”

Where­as some peo­ple might reach this age and feel that it’s all down­hill from here, I don’t feel that way at all. In fact, I have a sense that my 50s and 60s are going to be the great­est decades of my life—a mag­i­cal time when my knowl­edge, wis­dom, expe­ri­ence, con­fi­dence, men­tal acu­ity, work eth­ic, self-dis­ci­pline, self-direc­tion and excel­lent phys­i­cal con­di­tion are all going to come togeth­er: that mag­i­cal point on the graph where the lines mea­sur­ing the progress of these var­i­ous data points all inter­sect.

-

-

About three years ago, I took my best friend, Jason Scott, golf­ing with me. Jason isn’t a golfer and was nev­er an ath­lete, but as a mas­ter in his own right (in the realms of com­put­ers, film­mak­ing, the inter­net, and now even pod­casts, the bas­tard) he appre­ci­ates any endeav­or done well. I should men­tion that, in addi­tion to play­ing golf and writ­ing my behe­moth epic nov­el that sum­mer, I was work­ing out for two hours a day and swim­ming a mile three times a week.

-

-

At the 5^th hole of the course we were on, I stepped up to the tee and drilled—I mean fuck-ing drilled—an arrow-straight 270-yard dri­ve that sailed over the cart path, bounced twice and land­ed on the green. I said to Jason, “I’m sor­ry, Jay, but I have to brag for a moment. I don’t think you don’t real­ize this, because you’ve nev­er been a golfer or an ath­lete, but what I just did was a pro­fes­sion­al-cal­iber golf shot. I’m talk­ing Tiger Woods or Jack Nick­laus-lev­el. That was the best shot I’ve ever made.”

-

-

He was hap­py for me and said it was real­ly some­thing to see, but then he added, “It’s good that you’re out here now doing this stuff because we’re both going to be old men soon.”

“What?!” I stopped the cart and adjust­ed my sun­glass­es for dra­mat­ic effect.

(I should note here that my friend and I have known each oth­er for 40 years and have always admired and respect­ed each oth­er, so I knew I could talk to him as I did, and I also knew that he would know I was just being Chris Orcutt emphat­ic.)

I said, “Speak for your­self, dude. I’m nev­er get­ting old. I’m nev­er let­ting an old per­son in. That shit with doc­tors’ offices and med­ica­tion and retire­ment and aches and pains and stiff­ness and com­plain­ing. Fuck that shit. That’s nev­er going to be me. NEVER. When that Old Man starts a‑knockin’, I’m gonna open the door and kick him in the balls.”

This made my friend laugh, relieved the ten­sion of the moment, and we enjoyed the rest of the day.

-

-

Today, dur­ing my ride home after ski­ing, I thought about some recent pro­files Jason did of me on his pod­cast, and an inter­view I gave last week to WorldClassPerformer.com. The web­site inter­view was a total sur­prise to me because I’d nev­er heard of the web­site, and I didn’t solic­it the atten­tion in any way. I still have no idea how they’d heard of me.

-

-

Any­way, I thought about this recent, unso­licit­ed pub­lic­i­ty, and how all the cylin­ders are fir­ing per­fect­ly in my life right now: my writ­ing, my men­tal acu­ity, my phys­i­cal fit­ness, my nutri­tion (well…after the choco­late cake-cups Alexas made me today, this area isn’t per­fect any­more) and my sobri­ety. And I had what was per­haps a post-exer­cise endor­phin high-induced moment of clar­i­ty with a sud­den insight. (The Japan­ese call this state satori.)

In that brief, brief moment, the clouds part­ed in my mind and I caught a clear glimpse of my future. I real­ized that I was nev­er meant to be a wun­derkind, an enfant ter­ri­ble, a child prodi­gy; rather, I am the quin­tes­sen­tial (and much rar­er) late bloomer, and my best years are tru­ly ahead of me.

Fuck fifty-one. It’s noth­ing but a num­ber. And when that old man comes a‑knockin’, I’m still going to kick him in the balls.

Hard.

Tagged: aging, birthdays, Chris Orcutt, cross-country skiing, fitness, getting older, late bloomers, Orcutt, writer's life, writing, X-C skiing

• Share on: Twitter
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• Google+