Thanksgiving week-end

Hi,

I came back from school today to find my suite empty. Where a few hours ago, there had been a couple playing, a friend listening to music, and another writing poems, there was nobody.
Nobody on a Tuesday.

It is thanksgiving week-end and people go home to their family. This is one of the sacred holidays. Families have an early dinner together; this is a rare occasion to enjoy food, and talk as a family.
You see all these TV shows that picture the thanksgiving dinner as a touchy time for a family; they aren't used to so much closeness, it seems. And when a three hour seated dinner, with the TV off, comes along, they don't know how to interact.
No one in my suite watches much TV. I am glad, because here TV occupies a special place in a household. It is as much an expression of freedom as a car; not having a TV is met with an incredulous look; well what do you do when you're bored?; I walk past your windows, and I see your TVs on; someone watching; a mind gone, stolen by the small screen.
But interestingly enough, in social contexts the TV is forgotten, even though it remains on. Dinners are eaten with the TV on; I can't do that myself. My eyes are attracted to the movements on the little screen; my ears chose explosions over dinner conversation. I have not learned to split my attention the way people do here. I must appear at times rude; I answer my hosts absent-mindedly, and I know that they have made an effort to accomodate me. But the TV booms louder than they. Asking them to turn it off would be another faux-pas. Like telling their third child to stay quiet.
This long week-end is the first real break we got since the start of the quarter. Since I do not have class tomorrow, I have 6 days off. It is like mini-holidays. In a lonely suite.

I know one person who is not going back for the week-end. I hope we will go snowboarding together on Thursday. I would have to share the slopes with the thanksgiving families; dodge the unstable meandering women, the show-off men, and the kamikaze kids. Skiing or snowboarding in such cases takes on a whole different feeling. It is not me against the mountain; it is me and the mountain against them, the ones defiling it. I do not like slowing down; and so I get to slalom through a dynamic race; one that shifts somewhat randomly. Intermediate skiiers are the most dangerous; they believe they are good, and they believe they are in the right.
Not everyone goes skiing. These intermediate skiiers are upper middle-class god-fearing white families, who hold the firm belief that they are better than most. And indeed they usually own the flashiest car, the prettiest front lawn, and the greatest number of columns on the facades of their greco-roman mansions. In truth they are the lucky mediocrity; the ones that have made it to the top of the rest. Being the king of the nothing means a lot here. It is the revised American dream. The benefits of corporate, suburban, consumerist America.
And these consumers bring their business to the slopes enough time to believe that they are good. But you are a danger I tell you. You forget that you are sharing the slopes; that others exist. That snowboarders aren't punk kids; that falling isn't a crime; that remaining an intermediate skiier is a choice and not a given. Turning slows you down; go straight I tell you. Fear less, and let the slope take you. Let the wind rush past you; let it encase you in its semblance of protection; let it deafen you. Hear nothing but the thud of your pulse. Thud it says, you are scared. Thud, it says again. You are going fast. Can you see? Thud. Are your eyes watering. Thud, Thud, Thud. You fell. Well get up and try again. Next time you won't fall. You'll make it all the way down, and look back behind you, proud; I did that. I can't do it, but I did it. I went faster than I ever did before. I could have broken an arm. Hell, I could have broken my neck. I am going to do it again.
I will migrate to the lonely black slopes. These people are afraid; that is why they hide behind their trucks, their columns, their neat front lawns, their secure jobs, their smiles, their facades. They see a little black diamond and they dare not approach. There I will sit and look at the lake. I will get up and attack the mountain again. You and I will battle.
Until I reach the bottom, and see the line to the chairlift.