Clarabelle Conquers

Hello hello! Princess Whitney has just returned from skiing in the Alps for the weekend, and it was certainly a magical experience. Being the clever clever girl that I am, I forgot to charge my camera battery before I went, so I just have a handful of pictures-- but luckily my skiing buddy took plenty so I promise to share them all (plus the stories that accompany them) as soon as I can steal them off of facebook.

In other related news, I am currently working on a midterm assignment for one of my literature classes. The prompt? "Man can be destroyed, but not defeated." Naturally, I immediately thought of my recent experiences on the ski slopes. And luckily for you, my blog-reading-public, I now present to you the story of Saturday morning, poem-style.

Clarabelle Conquers

An overbundled and discouraged giant
in swishing snowpants and stiff boots,
Clarabelle tried not to feel
completely
and
utterly
inadequate
as tiny Swiss babies in tiny skis
giggled joyously, waved at proud parents,
and zoomed past her down the ice-covered hill.

The looming leviathan of the bunny slope
whispered a silent prayer
to the patron saint of
not
embarrassing
yourself
again
in front of Hans the ski instructor
who has the patience of a saint, dimples,
polarized goggles, and an adorable Swiss accent.

Clarabelle held her breath, shut her eyes,
pointed her skis down the hill,
and thought positively:
I
can
do
it!
she repeated to herself
as she imagined skidding to a triumphant halt,
spraying powder into the air at the end of the slope.

Much too late, Clarabelle stopped imagining
the snow-covered Hans cheering proudly
and started to see instead
how
very
very
fast
she was flying down the slope,
too fast even to notice the wide eyes
and chubby Swiss-baby fingers pointing at her.

She released her poles and whimpered,
wildly flapped her arms,
and gutturally cried:
Wha
Yeargh
Blahack
Nao!
"Wedge! Wedge!" Hans cried in vain,
making wild giant triangles with his arms
and wishing he had qualified for this year's semi-finals.

Clarabelle, however, managed to create
no such triangles with her skis.
"Abort mission!" she cried:
Curling
into
a
ball,
she thunkity-thunked down the hill,
snow spraying all around her as she rolled,
and finally deposited herself neatly at Hans' feet.

Removing the snowy deposits from her nostrils
and wiping her mouth, she looked up
at Hans' dimples as he said:
Zat
vas
ferry
good!
Clarabelle beamed,
fetched her abandoned poles, and marched
in stiff boots and swishing snowpants back to the lift.