My wife left me. She left me for another woman. The divorce wasn't contested so it didn't cost me anything in the way of property. But it sure cost a lot in other ways. I'm pissed. I'm depressed. I failed and wonder what I could have, should have, done. I made a commitment, a serious commitment, was open and trusting and got shit for it. I'm wounded. Another woman! Hell, I'm even feeling inadequate. And as the months go by I'm not getting over it. I know I should. I know I have to.
I told an old friend from school, Fred, that I'd like to just withdraw, go hide in a hole somehow. Obviously, he told me not to do that, which I knew, of course. But he offered something else. He suggested that I spend some time at his family's extra home or cabin near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I knew the place, my old friend and I had spent a week there years ago skiing. It's not much of a place. It's been in his family for something like fifty years. But skiing at Steamboat was a better place to go hide than in my apartment in New York.
About a dozen years ago I had dropped out of school for a quarter to be a ski bum near Stowe, Vermont. I took a minimum kind of job and managed to ski almost constantly. Well, I'm not really capable of being a true ski bum I don't think, I mean I had a job. And I didn't ski constantly since I had to work some but I skied a lot. A couple years later when Fred and I went to Steamboat I learned that Stowe was sort of like high school to Steamboat's college. The snow is better, the runs are longer, the altitude is higher, the scenery even more magnificent. Skiing through the Aspens at Steamboat is a whole 'nother thing.,
So, I arranged with my Dean, where I teach, to get a quarter off. It meant I had to wait a couple months but what does that mean when I've been miserable for even more months already. So, I'm finally off to Steamboat and can stay for a couple months if I enjoy it. If that doesn't snap me out of my funk I don't know what will.
The cabin is outside of town a little in fairly open country. I ski for three days and it's absolutely perfect. Beautiful weather, great snow. It makes me glad I've gone to the gym and kept in fairly decent shape. My muscles are sore but manageable. There's a snowmobile and I think about taking it out for a half day and talk to a local guy at the gas station and he tells me that out of my back yard if I head Northwest, I should have a fair number of miles of open land. Some houses or cabins, perhaps an occasional road to get across, but relatively open country for a long way. So I decide to do it.
I've driven snowmobiles before. I once had a motorcycle and they handle similarly. I also know about safety. I take along some extra gas in case I need it, pack a little lunch , dress really warm and head off. It's a real kick. I feel like a cowboy in a movie, riding the open range. I'm not sure but I probably was fifteen miles from home when I learn that I hadn't planned carefully enough. It started to snow and moved very quickly to serious snow, approaching a blizzard. I had to get cover. I head in what I think is the direction to some civilization. I can hardly see, it's almost a white out. Scary. Then I notice some ski tracks right next to me. The skier can't be far ahead or the tracks would be covered so I keep my eye on them and follow them. Almost immediately I see a dark figure and pull up next to it.
"Can I give you a ride?" I have to yell to be heard. The person turns and looks at me. I think I was a surprise. She yells back. I didn't know until I heard the voice that it was a she.
"My cabin is just ahead. I'll climb on and we should be there very soon." she yells back. She tries just straddling the snowmobile but that isn't going to work so she gets out of her skis, holds them across her lap, pulls up behind me and holds on around me. I start up and move ahead. We're not going fast. I can't see a darn thing and don't want to hit something dangerous. Very soon, perhaps two minutes, I can see an orange glow to our left. I point at it. "Shit!" I hear from behind me. "That must be my cabin." I rev up slightly and head for the glow. A large dark shape starts looming in the midst of the snow.
We both jump off the snowmobile in front of what must be her cabin. There is a fire on her roof. Not a huge fire, I think the snow is actually helping hold it down and may even put it out. "Do you have a hose, some place to connect it? Maybe I can put out the fire."
She looks at me and motions to follow her. We head up on a porch , she opens the door and we go inside. I follow her into what is obviously the living room. Looking up we can see a small charred opening. "Yes, I have a hose. Up here an outside water tap freezes in the winter so the hose is inside and the connection will have to be inside."
"How about a tall ladder?"
"Yes." She scurries and I follow. Next to an outside door the hose is coiled and laying there. A threaded water tap is also there. I start connecting the hose and she starts pulling out an extension ladder from under a staircase leading to what must be a second floor or loft. I get the ladder up against the fire place and it looks like I can get up near the hole in the roof. I pull the hose along and climb up. I can actually get enough of my head up through the hole to see a fairly small, smoldering fire, very low flames. The snow actually is putting it out.
'Can you turn on the hose?" I ask. I aim it at the flames and soon water gushes out. The flames are gone quickly. I look back down. "Turn it off." Once the water is off, I drop the hose and look back out. No fire. Some water and some burnt ceiling are on the floor, a little snow is coming in. Messy but a minor mess. "Do you have a tarp? Anything that I can spread out over this hole to keep the snow out and heat in?" She runs off and comes back with a fairly big tarp, perhaps 9 x 12 feet. I come down to the floor, roll it up and climb back up and shove the roll up through the hole. It's cumbersome working from what's the middle of the problem but I get the tarp unrolled on the roof, on top of snow and sort of push and pull until it seems to me to be spread out about as good as I'm going to manage and certainly cover the hole.
"That ought to do it for now," I tell her as I climb down. "It's snowing so hard that the tarp will be covered in minutes which ought to help hold it down. It's certainly temporary, as soon as the weather clears something better needs to be done but for now it ought to keep the heat in and the snow out. Some melting snow and charred wood will probably still leak and leave some very dirty water so we probably should put something under there to catch as much as we can."
She leaves and comes back with a bucket. I try and figure where stuff might drop and place the bucket there. Then, for the first time, I look around and really see the place. We're in a large room with a high ceiling. It's truly a beautiful place. Expensive. Since I saw some stairs, somewhere there must be a second floor.
"Thanks," she says. "I probably caused this. I love a fire so before I went out to ski I built a big one, intending for it to still be burning when I got back. I guess I succeeded since there it is," she says as she looks at a normal, nice fire in the huge, stone fireplace. "The fire must have been too big and sent some embers out on the roof. You've been terrific about this, I owe you."
"Oh, no, I owe you. With that blizzard, if I hadn't met you I'd probably be freezing to death by now."
