Scott and I planned on going downhill skiing, but Sugarloaf was on wind hold and the temperature struggled to get above 10 degrees. With the brisk wind it didn’t feel that warm. The REZ is a bit icy and ungroomed, so we trucked about 5 miles across the Kennebec River to the Augusta Arboretum. It has groomed trails and a sense of order. We zipped through it, fell one or twice in icy transitions and Scott skated up hill and down, while I couldn’t keep an edge. I can skate like a madman on down hill skies, but my ankle doesn’t like the torque from long slippery cross country skiis. The snow has turned to ice saturated dense plaster, with crispy crust in places, and lots of boilerplate in wet sections. It was extremely cold, but we were dressed for it. The conditions aren’t great, the weather is brutal, the skiing is tricky but its another day in Paradise in central Maine.
The latest research shows that ADHD is helped by being outside in nature. Apparently the multitasking brain gets absorbed in the details of the ever changing stimulus that is the constant flow of light and dark, water and wind,cool and cold. Confining everyone as rats in a maze in long class rooms days doesn’t allow for fluxuations in personality. A lot of boys are hard wired to do then think. maybe, we’ll figure out that taking kids outside and teaching them physical skills is half the battle, and problem solving physical questions works as well as hypothetical.
