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anne: that was so unsexy. please slap my wrist.
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-We wake up to the world under a foot and a half of white, nubby socks tucked under fleece blankets, the thud of snowballs hitting our front door. Cram into the Subaru with snowboards, too many people, sleds in the back, open bag of Cheetos to pass around, a Chrismas ornament lashing wildly back and forth from the rearview mirror. Drive up the mountain, further, climb until everyone else is gone behind the driving snow, until trees are the only sentries we see. Car tips into a ditch, lurches under us, grinds snow under its spinning wheels, but we don't care. Get out, throw snow at each other, laugh because our feet can't touch the ground and we can't see the sky and we can't feel our noses and that makes everything funny. We start up the hill, leave the car behind to brood.
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Screaming, sled spinning, gloved hands against my back, snow flying in my open mouth. Can't steer, turn one way and careen the other direction into a snow bank. Someone else skates past sideways, all of us laughing so hard, our mouths wide open like children, eyes squeezed shut, dripping tears and snow melt. Ribcage heaving, ice water dripping down my wrists, snowfall slanted sideways against the sky but landing gentle like kisses on my neck. Lay flat on my back, snowboard driven into the bank beside me, smile at the grey sky and the way it muffles everything life isn't supposed to be.
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And then suddenly we're in a snow fight, all of us flinging powder that won't stick, tripping and postholing in the not-ground. We're losing, so we call a truce and then tackle one of the others sideways into a snow bank. He disappears unprotesting into the drifts piled high around us, because we can't get hurt in the snow, no matter how hard we fall. All's fair in love, war, and snow days, and this is all of the above.
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I feel light, honest, like I will only ever laugh at things that are funny from now on. A yellow truck crests the hill, a friend coming to pull us out of the snow, and we crowd back around the car to watch it lurch back out of the snow bank like a misplaced sea monster. Later there is hot chocolate in mismatched mugs, and kettle corn, and home videos of high school plays, but the euphoric skid down the hill and the ice against my teeth is what I'll remember about this day. Frost crunching in my fist, misshapen snow angels, the certainty that the world is good, clean and powerful as the white falling from the sky.
