I feel a bit badly for the children that winter around here has been mild. I certainty don't mind, but I remember how much I loved playing in the snow when I was younger. I would be outside the entire day until I was frozen through my layers of clothing.
We got a second snowfall (the only one that stuck) over the weekend. If you can even consider it snow. It was more like snow coated in a layer of frozen rain. So brittle is snapped into jagged chunks under out feet. I guess you could say, we were desperate. River couldn't stop talking about wanting to go out in the snow and sled, build a snowman, make a snow angel...
The closest I could get to his heart's desire was to drag out the sled--horribly scrapping over the scant layer of slush as we walked up the street towards a hill. Sage, quite seriously, took it all in.
I found myself longing for snow. I love the silence when it falls--as if the whole world is holding its breath. I love the pattern of it on the naked tree branches. I love the unspoiled expanse of new fallen snow. I love sledding, falling off and sinking into it. I love the rush in my tummy as I hurtle down a hill. It makes children of adults.
River was old enough this year to go down the hill by himself. "Let me do it alone." There he went, confident and so very grown. Zooming down the hill, across the slash of pavement and towards the fence. Sage cried each and every time I made her get out of the sled. She didn't laugh when we all went down together. My serious, miss. She just waited till we went again. Cried and yelled when River went down without her.
Only once, towards the end, did I dare let them go down together without me. I had images of Sage flung from the sled and cutting her face on a shard of ice. "Hold onto, River" I told her. Her little arms went up. Her mittens grasped his shoulders. They went--moving away from me. A bright red coat with a bur of blue stuck to its back. I was reminded how they aren't mine to keep, these bright little souls. I found comfort in the fact that they have each other.
As always, I am reminded of life's symmetry. A sister and a brother in the snow to this--another brother, another sister in the snow. Life's small blessings in these echoes.
Now...come on, mother nature, send us one good storm.
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