Right now: Spring skiing and love

She pulled out her traveling machine plan at breakfast and said: “Where would you want to go this morning, mama? Utah, Costa Rica or Italy?” “Costa Rica, for sure!” I answered without hesitation, watching outside the window as more snow fell from the sky. 

But we grabbed our skis and went outside. 

After a mere kilometer, we both fell in the heavy sticky snow that made backcountry skiing so hard for her and laughed our hearts out. Then, she asked about life on other planets and oxygen and why our heart beats faster when we exercise. In the same breath, she said: “It might look like winter, but it smells like spring in the forest, mama.” 

I turned towards her and said: “You know, there is nowhere I’d rather be but here with you, sweetheart.” And we both smiled in the wet embrace of Mother Earth. Fully present. Fully alive.

Expectations

The day in waves. From gratitude to frustration + back.
My head in overdrive.
Pretty images of tulip fields and windmills.
More highlights than most days, despite it all.
Or perhaps, because.
Funny what happens when you drop all expectations.

Deep breath. Peel the carrots. Exhale.

I could have peeled 50 lbs of carrots that way. Something in the repetitive movement, the meditation, helped me come back to my center.
Only he knew how much I needed the mental space. 
Then, laughing and singing with her in the car felt like a million bucks.

It was

It was the sky. It was the new light flooding the kitchen at 6 pm. It was the songs of the waxwings already back from their winter migration. It was the twinkle in his eyes when he talked about the mountains. It was their duo. It was their laughter.

The grey and the wet

Trying hard to embrace the grey, the wet, the snow, the ice. Trying.
I am so ready for spring.

Her guitar

She takes it out at least 10 times a day just to feel it in her hands. She had been talking about learning to play for so long. There is something to be said about how wonderful it can be to wait for something.

Winter encourages minimalism

A great quote from a great book I just finished that reminds me a lot of our Yukon winters.

« Shovels, gloves, toys, and buckets. Boats, bicycles, cars, and sheds. Roads and houses. All buried. The world is wiped clean with every snowfall – smoot, perfect, inaccessible. The bustling busyness of gardens and berries and construction projects fades into a distant-seeming memory as one by one, each time-sucking project disappears beneath the white. The only cars visible are the ones that work well enough to be driven every day. The only doors that open are the ones repeatedly shoveled. The only paths walkable are the ones repeatedly stomped.

Everything else? You’ll see it in May. Or maybe June. You probably didn’t need it anyway.

Winter encourages minimalism. » - Erin McKittrick, Small Feet, Big Land (Adventure, Home, and Family on the Edge of Alaska)

:: Lili, my friend's daughter, building a fairy garden on top of a rock ::