You don't always get what you want… but sometimes you do

lifeskiing

Mar 29

Written By

Yep… Pipe dreams (quad Superpipe dreams) from Tony Schmiesing on Vimeo.

It's not often I get overwhelmed to the point of being rendered speechless, but as you can see at the start of this video (and why I made it over 2 days), as I began to tug at the threads that connected all the things that made this February ski trip of mine to Tahoe so mind blowing… well… it happened (oh, and BTW, my March trip went further out into the stratosphere!).

In my heart it all seemed so easy to formulate, so neatly linear, but once I tried to put it all into words, the nuance and minutia just kept unraveling and no detail felt as though it could be left out. I kept finding myself saying: “oh, wait, this led to this and this to this… and then this to this.” And so on and so on.

But in the end, it came down to 2 simple things: 1). In life you don't always get what you want, but if/when you do, you'd be wise to celebrate and appreciate it with a ferocity that's commensurate with such an understanding. And 2). It took me about 3 decades to get air and vert again (for those of you who are uninitiated in the world of board sports, fear not, if what I just said at #2 sounded like gobbledygook and makes no sense at all, see the videos)!

That said, there are many people who contributed to #1 and #2 (if they can even be separated) and therefore to the ultimate accomplishment of a pretty cool dream. And so, in no small way (as these things are with me), I must exclaim I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you.

I also know (and all those who've been privy to the miraculous assistance of others should know this too) these things don't happen in a vacuum; one puts themselves in a position to inspire the collaboration of others. In essence then — or as much as they can be, I suppose — my own particular wild dreams have become a kind of group project. And I like that.

If you're new to this mysterious bus ride, welcome aboard, and if this is old hat for you, yada yada yada… hello again. In either case, I think things are about to get a whole lot more bananas!