"You take Adele sledding," I told Steve last Saturday morning, the day after the girls had stayed home from school due to snow. "I need some time to myself."
Like tastebuds that dull over time, my inner drive for excitement and stimulation has dwindled some. For example, I no longer want to spend hours tumbling in the surf when I go to the beach. I'm happy enough to sit on a towel in the warm sand and keep an eye on the girls while they experience firsthand the roiling, cold and mighty ocean.
That is why I chose to drink tea by the fire and fill in a crossword puzzle while Steve took Adele sledding. When they returned, wet and snowy, he showed me the pictures he'd taken. As I stuffed their ice-caked socks, gloves and coats in the dryer, I realized I'd made a mistake. In my resistance to the cold and my desire to be free of their needs, I'd missed out on the experience entirely.
So I invited Steve and the girls to go back out sledding with me in the afternoon. On a steep, snow-covered street busy with sledders, I found an old wooden Flexible Flyer, the kind I'd used when I was a girl, propped against a tree and waiting for a rider. I pulled it up the hill, lay down on it and pushed off. Then I flew down the long street on its thin metal rails. Exhilarated, laughing loudly, I felt the ground whistling beneath my body as I sped down the hill. At the bottom, I rolled into the snow, got up and brushed myself off for another run.
"How is it?" Steve called, taking pictures.
"Fantastic!" I yelled. "Dangerously fast! These old sleds are insane! Do you want to go down on it?"
"No way," he said.
On one ride, I barreled down the street so fast I had to deliberately ditch myself in a front yard to avoid running into the intersection at the bottom of the hill. The sled hit a snow-hidden curb, and I shot forward as if from a cannon, landing face first in the snow. I did not attempt the jump that the neighbor kids had set up, wisely determining that my spine might not be as flexible as theirs. When it was time to go home, I returned the sled to its tree, thrilled.
I spent the following day, Sunday, sore from wiping out, hobbling around the house taking Advil. One afternoon had been enough for me, but Adele went back out with friends. Happy and invigorated by my experience, I made a mental note to continue to push myself to directly partake in life's pleasures and possibilities.
On Monday, Becki, who is just my age and who comes every other week to help clean our house, let herself in with the key. I heard an uncharacteristic, lumbering limp as she made her way up the stairs to our study. When she reached the landing, I saw the raw and scabby wound covering the length of her nose.
"Oh, no! What happened?"
"Don't ever go sledding at night," she warned, "and especially not after two margaritas." She described how she'd run off the road into a concrete drainage trench and was lucky her head hadn't hit the culvert wall.
I couldn't help chuckling at her deadpan admonition, but it was a serious matter and solid advice, so I made another mental note, knowing that two margaritas could still have the power to stir in me a foolhardy desire to do just such a thing.
