"Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York ..." - William Shakespeare
"The winter of our discontent..." Shakespeare wasn't talking about the weather. He was talking about the end of the public's discontent because Richard III was going to come into power. This was pretty far from the truth. As for the weather, well, we handle the winter differently.
There are people like my sisters, who like to cross-country ski. There are those who go tubing, down-hill skiing, There are those who love watching the winter Olympics. When I was younger, Mom made sure we learned how to ice skate. We had a toboggan and every year we would wax it up and get it ready for the hill we jokingly called "Killer Gulch." "Killer Gulch" was the great divide on the farm behind us. Given the appropriate speed and trajectory, one could ride the toboggan from the top all the way to the ice-skating pond clearly a half mile away. When my nephews and niece were little, we decided that they were ready to be introduced to the excitement of the winter, tobogganing and "Killer Gulch." We bundled everyone up. They could hardly move their legs with their snow suits and boots. They are their homemade hats and gloves on too. "Killer Gulch" awaited.
My sister Jojo and I trekked up to the top of the hill with the toboggan. My other sister Jen and the kids waited at the bottom. Jojo and I were going to show them how it was done. Jojo and I were more excited than they were I think. The snow was icier and slick. It was not the powdered snow that would have been preferable had we thought about it. We didn't. We got to the top of the hill and positioned ourselves on the toboggan. I took the back. Jojo rode the front. She was better at steering. We pushed ourselves off.
We were going at the speed of light, laughing hysterically, waving to the kids. "Killer Gulch" had one smaller hill to it and if you hit just right, you flew into the air. Apparently, we were having so much fun that we didn't see the smaller hill and hit it just right and up, up, up we flew. I looked down, we were off the snow! I hung onto sister and just as we touched down for a landing, my legs loosened and I flew off the toboggan, but not before smacking my jaw into sister's back. I tumbled off and laid in the snow. I couldn't move. When I finally looked up, sister was lying face down in the snow. She looked up and she had a beard of snow. I couldn't move my jaw but I know funny when I see it and sister was well, FUNNY! The toboggan continued, as we knew it would to the pond.
As sister and I tried to put our bodies back together, we hadn't noticed that the kids had been watching the entire scene. They looked at us, looked at Jen and promptly asked, "Can we go home and have some hot chocolate?" We licked our wounds and sister wiped the snow from her chin and we ambled home.
Winter isn't exactly a season I embrace but on that day nearly 20 years ago or so, winter meant something to all of us. We laughed so hard that day, we couldn't breathe, sister and I. We drank our hot chocolate and we got reprimanded by Mom for our "risk taking" but we didn't care. Till this day, we remembered a winter day where we ceased our discontent and had experienced the thrill of "Killer Gulch." We didn't care about the cold or the ice. We were simply in the present, experiencing the possibilities of winter. We may have our misgivings about the winter season but no matter what season we are in, we need thrills, laughter and perhaps, take a risk or two, or three, or four, or.....
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