Perfect is the enemy of the perfect

Somewhere down in the fog there’s a city of people complaining about the dull gray sky.

Yesterday I blew off work to go skiing and it was perfect, or good depending on your point of view.  “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”  Voltaire that said that. Maybe Voltaire spent time the mountains. He is also credited with the phrase, “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”  Voltaire was centuries before people turned the word snowflake into an insult. I like snowflakes cuz, ya know, I am a skier. I am a snowflake seeking an avalanche but that’s a cultural avalanche. I digress. I am also a skier that doesn’t want a damn thing to do with real avalanches.

The Back Side of Douglas.

Wednesday we got a dump of snow so yesterday I took Thursday off work and went skiing. I chose to ski inbounds because I was going solo and there was avalanche potential. It turns out it wasn’t too bad and the snow was quite stable. It also turns out the day was perfect. What would Voltaire say about that?

Powder is sometimes called “Hero Snow.” Voltaire didn’t invent that phrase. I don’t know who did but it means that you can ski like a hero and the crashes don’t hurt. Usually. I showed up before the lift opened and rode to the top of the mountain one of the first chairs. At the bottom of the lift ramp I turned immediately and shot straight down a steep run on the east side. There was 10-12 of new powder and I got first tracks. I was looking and feeling like a hero in hero snow. Toward the bottom of the run I tried to hop over a snow pit but instead plunged into the pit. My first thought was that my crash ruined a perfect run. How often do I get to be the first skier down East Wolverine on a powder day and I messed up perfection AFTER I successfully run most of the mountain.  Though I had thoughts that I messed up a perfect run (I had) I also took a moment to look up. I lay in a pile of snow staring into a bluebird sky, snowflakes swirling down as they eased from the spruce trees overhead. I thought of Voltaire. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Overexposed Selfie. It's good enough

Why concern myself about making a perfect run if I diminish the experience berating myself for screwing it up by falling into a pit? For the last few ski trips I have got into the habit of berating myself for other reasons. I am not the skier I used to think I am. I never was. I used to think I was a shit from the coffee bean cat on a ski slope. A better skier wouldn’t be in that pit. As a point of fact, a minute later a better skier blew past me and he did not biff it into a pit. Biff it or no, I got the first track that morning down East Wolverine.

I got off my ass and back on my skis and skied the rest of the way down the mountain to the Ptarmigan lift and found myself on the chairlift with the same skier that blasted by me.  He grinned an uncontainable grin and exclaimed, “It’s sucks to be us today don’t it?” Straight up! Conditions up there weren’t perfect if you thought for a while. Deeper powder provides more bragging rights. I have a friend from Utah that claimed 14 inches of snow in her driveway. Eaglecrest only had 10 inches. Skiing would have been better, I suppose, with more base. Shallow base caused the pit in the first place. I c

ould pick apart the experience like an inexperienced editor and come up with even more reasons the day wasn’t perfect but I am going to add to Voltaire’s phrase. Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the perfect. Think of that. 

Pete.

Perhaps Voltaire wasn’t just talking about that perfectionists never get a damn done. He was talking about that partly but it’s not the only interpretation. Perhaps, in looking too closely at Van Gogh’s brush technique, we miss out on the genius sitting staring at us. We see how Van Gogh saw a starry night and the vision haunts us. That’s perfection. Do I lose a perfect moment when I ask myself if a day spent rock climbing would be improved if I was a better climber? Would it be improved it I hadn’t fallen off a wall while climbing last year and needed shoulder surgery? Would it be improved if I had started climbing when I was ten years old and not waited until I was 43?  Would Americans be more free if we weren’t shackled by broken notions of what makes people free?

It might be better IF I had learned to climb early in life. I might or it might not. This essay might be better if I used fewer commas, or more.  I, am, not, sure. What I am sure about is that it’s possible to tarnish a moment with “What ifs.” Sometimes it’s better to soak in the good and call it perfect. 

"What ifs" can shackle us if we allow them to become catastrophic what-ifs. Say, what if that pit had contained a razor sharp rock. What if nobody ever wants to listen to the songs I write and sing? What if instead of landing on my shoulder and severing half the tendons in rotator cuff, I had landed on my head and broken my neck?  What if walking my dog criminals  rob me at gunpoint? I might find myself scared shitless, not skiing, not climbing rocks, never singing and never writing songs. I might become one of those pathetic souls packing a loaded gun, forever dreaming that I get a chance to use it. Catastrophic what-ifs can be as paralyzing as a broken neck.

This photo would be better if I had a better camera

Around noon I ran into my friend Pete and I greeted him by quoting the guy on the lift, “It sucks to be us today don’t it?” Pete agreed. Pete came up at noon because he was on call to help with a search and rescue drill. The drill was canceled because the airport was covered in fog and they were supposed to use a helicopter. Pete and I hiked out the ridge and I made one run with him before going home to walk the dog. All the landscape below our mountaintop view was soaking in thick fog and we were bathed in eye-splitting beauty. Halfway down the West Bowl, I attempted a jump and I crashed again in hero snow. It was more than good.

It was a perfect crash.