eyes closed, face first

At the top of the hill it’s quiet, peaceful. Just how you remember it. Below is nothing but perfect whiteness, no breaks in the snow except for trees dotted here and there, all the way down to the end of the field and the start of the street. It is all orderly, all complete. School hasn’t let out, maybe one more hour to go. It’s been so long since you’ve been a kid, you don’t know when the school day ends anymore. Maybe an hour of quiet left, and then chaos will erupt on the hill.

When you were a kid you were the chaos, the constant noise and movement and color obliterating the quiet. The rush of the red plastic sled as it went down. The back and forth swish of your army green snow pants rubbing together as you pulled yourself up the hill once again. The yelling as you face-planted or got a spray of snow in your mouth or were crashed into by other kids on orange inner tubes and brown toboggans. The laughing as you snuck up on your friends and pushed them before they could get their gloves back on, making sure you put some spin into it. Noise and color everywhere, crashing into each other, clashing as it tumbled together, bounced back and forth, slid past.

What was that like, those days, can you really remember? There was abandon, that’s for sure. Did you really run up and down that hill for hours? Were you really able to ignore the cold and the soaking wet gloves and socks? Are the things you are trying to reclaim really there at all, were they ever? Could you really have had that much fun?

From the top of the hill the snow is blinding in the winter sun. You wish you’d brought your sunglasses, you wish you’d brought a visor, you wish you’d brought a hundred children to tear up that whiteness with all the enthusiasm their little hearts can muster. We all had that enthusiasm once. But there is only you and a giant hill and untouched whiteness everywhere. So do your best. Raise that sled high above your head. Take a running leap. Throw yourself into the void.