“The full meaning of a tradwife is you do the sourdough, you frolic in the field, you have your animals, but at the end of the day, you submit to your husband.”
—Vanity Fair, “Tradwife vs. Tradwife: Even Christians Have Had Enough of Ballerina Farm”
I approach these teachings with sincerity, embracing the rhythms of a more traditional life: the early rising, the tending, the quiet labors undertaken long before another creature has stirred from his or her place of rest.
In this life, the work is practical, consisting chiefly of ski wax, whiskey flasks and DIN settings, and my devotion remains steadfast and true.
I array myself in modest layers in this land where the fields rise steeply, the temperatures dip inordinately, and the beasts — chiefly moose, hibernating potguts and overworked lifties — accept no ministry of mine.
Anon, I check the conditions of the land and sky. Tradition and a 10-day forecast of 0 inches bend themselves to the contours of this place, and forsooth, I bend and flow with it.
In due course, I take my place amidst the gathered. We wait in orderly fashion, bearing our Black Crows, our Rossignols, our six-packs of Yacht Rock Juice Box without complaint.
We submit to the wind, the snow and the reckless abandon of children as they come nigh — far too nigh — on snow bikes.
There are those who speak of the coming storm. The rest of us know better than to forecast aloud, much as we know not to prophesy the torn ACLs and ruptured Achilles the mountain has yet to claim. Nay, the mountain shall reveal her plan in her own time. And a solemn petition will hasten neither the chairlift nor the swift arrival of a well-timed buoy pop.
I remain faithful to my duty as the apparatus of ascent receives us. I rise to meet the challenges that lie before me. Thus begins the labor proper: the carving, the unweighting, the courteous yielding to the pack of park rats who’ve gazed at far too many Candide Thovex TikToks.
While some hasten to meet the trail’s inevitable conclusion, I follow the line it has seen fit to offer, meeting each core shot, each unforeseen death cookie, each exposed piece of rebar in its pure and unadulterated splendor. The gods of Ptex giveth and they taketh away.
By midday, the call for sustenance arises. I soberly regard the offerings set before me: the $25 hamburgers, the stews of questionable origin, the fries which have long since surrendered to chill as they await their pending dispatch.
The pilgrims queue willingly for their provisions, their $1,500 passes held aloft in eager anticipation of a $75 cent discount. A moment of free will overcomes me as I retrieve a half-eaten Snickers bar, its edges softened by the quiet passage of time in my pocket and the morning’s exertions.
As the day’s toil draws to its inevitable close, we gather for the time-honored rites of après. For this, we give thanks to the Pig Pen. Lo, though the pours are as restrained as the laws that govern them, I gratefully receive the portion allotted to me, a measure so slight it might pass unnoticed were it not set in glass. Indeed, one suspects a camel could find passage through a needle’s eye sooner than an ample allowance could find its way to a Utah glass.
My brethren and I lift our vessels in earnest fellowship, before returning, heads bowed, to iPhones in a constant Tinder vigil.
At last, we take our leave as dusk settles. Our legs stiff, our countenances aglow, and our vision slightly blurred as we descend on skis to First Time. The mountain recedes as we return to our scattered dwellings. I set my sweaty boots by the vent, carefully lay down my damp layers and restore my small abode to perfect order.
These tasks I perform alone. There is no husband waiting by the hearth, no domestic audience to whom the day’s account must be given. Amidst the steady quiet, I am met only by the muffled snoring of my four-legged fur child curled in his well-tended bed.
Perhaps this, too, is a tradition, unwritten and untroubled by the past. A tradlife wrought not from expectations, but from the labors of my own two hands.