When I get back on snow, it's almost like I travel back in time

Hear, O listener, the words of Mikaela Shiffrin, champion of the snow, who declared: “When I get back on snow, it’s almost like I travel back in time to that feeling I used to have. That youthful, 6-year-old, ‘nothing else matters,’ ‘you’re sort of the center of the universe’ kind of a feeling.” In these words is not only the voice of an athlete, but the cry of the human heart, remembering the sacred fire of childhood wonder. For she speaks of the gift of returning—returning to the purity of joy before the burdens of life descend, to the unbroken simplicity of being alive in a single, radiant moment.

The heart of this saying lies in the mystery of time travel of the spirit. Shiffrin does not enter a machine or pass through a portal; rather, she steps onto snow, and at once she is transported into her earliest self. It is as though the body carries memory in its muscles, and the heart carries memory in its rhythms. The snow beneath her feet is not merely frozen water—it is the bridge between past and present, carrying her back to the innocent ecstasy of a child whose world is whole and unshaken.

This truth is ancient. The poets of Greece spoke of the golden age of childhood, when the soul lived closer to the gods, unburdened by fear or weariness. Plato himself wrote that learning is remembering, that the soul recalls truths it once knew. Shiffrin’s words echo this wisdom: when she skis, she remembers not merely skills but the feeling of being, the childlike joy that life’s struggles can obscure but never erase. In snow she finds not only sport, but a doorway into eternity.

Consider also the story of Leonardo da Vinci, who, as a man, marveled at flight with the same awe he felt as a boy gazing at birds in the Tuscan sky. His sketches of wings were not the work of duty, but of wonder remembered. Like Shiffrin, he rediscovered as an adult the child’s amazement at the world. And in that rediscovery lay his genius. For it is not age itself that dims us, but forgetting. To return to childhood wonder is to reignite the spark that drives creation, courage, and greatness.

Shiffrin speaks, too, of the feeling of being the center of the universe. To the adult, this sounds like arrogance, but to the child it is pure: it is the sense that existence itself is vast, and yet it belongs wholly to you in that instant. This is not selfishness but unity—the merging of self and world, where the snow, the body, and the soul are one. To experience such a moment is to step outside of time, to taste a glimpse of eternity, where nothing else matters but the fullness of being alive.

The lesson here is clear: seek the things that carry you back to wonder. For each of us has such doors—whether it is the scent of earth after rain, the sound of music from youth, the feel of brush on canvas, or the return to a childhood game. These are not trivial pleasures, but sacred portals that restore the soul to its source. In them, we remember who we were before the world’s noise pressed upon us. They are reminders that within us still lives the child, waiting to awaken.

And in practice: make space in your life for those experiences that bring you back to your beginnings. Do not dismiss them as childish; honor them as the wellsprings of your humanity. When you find yourself burdened with care, step onto your own snow—whatever form it may take—and allow it to carry you back to the place where joy was simple, and life was whole. For to remember that youthful feeling is not to retreat into the past, but to draw strength for the present, and to keep the fire of wonder alive for the future.

Thus, let Shiffrin’s words be sealed as teaching: the greatest victories are not only medals or triumphs, but the rediscovery of joy untouched by time. To live well is to remember, again and again, the child within, and to carry that light across the years like a torch against the darkness.