Fallen angels

A snow day ... an unscheduled liberty.

Sleep late. Lounge around.

Stay in your bed clothes and watch teevee until your eyes bulge.

No place to go. No place to be.

My plans are always fluid. When they go down the drain I hardly notice.

There is no trap.

Play dates. Lunch mates. No one wants to stay late ...

I bake cookies. Tiny molasses mounds I dust with sugar and flatten with the bottom of a drinking glass.

After six minutes in a 350-degree oven, the morsels will be celebrated by guests and critiqued by residents.

As they do.

Ingrates.

Send them out into the cold. Send them out with a faded shovel and a diminutive nub of carrot. Build them a pile and tell them to carve a man from the snow.

They make mice of my men.

Delighted with their work, they lay in the yard and flap about, clotting up the snow with angels.

Crazy people.

I think I am done ... my duties over ... when they start jumping up and down, chanting "Sled.Ding.Sled.Ding.Sled.Ding."

We tumble into the car and drive off with our sleds. ... The ones that aren't a total disappointment.

When we arrive at our destination we find the hill hasn't been marred. We are the first to sail down its hidden incline.

We have to forge tracks ... like worms in wood.

Wriggling. Scooting. Dragging ourselves through the snow, inch by inch.

The next run is faster. Another, faster still.

Time flies, too. And hour passes in only a few runs.

We fly down the hill. We tumble at the end. She stands on her saucer. He belly flops onto his. My hair gets caked in an icy slush. I think its a good thing my legs feel slightly numb. It keeps me from feeling my age.

Down the hill ... up the hill. Shaking off snow. Down the hill ... up the hill. That's how this goes.

And then it gets slower. At the end of the run, they lay in the field looking up at the sky. Not moving.

Eventually, they roll onto one side and push them selves up. They drag their sleds up the hill as slow as their excited legs will carry them. And wait for a time at the top.

Savoring this moment.

It all goes by so fast.