FLOATING ON BLADES IN THE WINTER

When I was in grade school in North Woburn, Massachusetts, I found a friend who was a wild sister at heart. Although a year younger than I, Julie Foley knew the area through the woods near a creek that would flood in the winter then freeze. It was in that woodsy area where I learned how to skate... got my balance and the gist of moving forward first by hanging on to one tree and pushing myself off to another. We had walked through those woods and knew where the boys had a hut -- where they could go off together and smoke, swapping stories and having pissing contests. Somehow they never were around when we sought out their hiding place, and kind of called it our own.

Once the ice had hardened enough, we had skated every chance we'd get after school and on weekends when the ice hid the bottoms of the trees and we could skate through the woods... then, in spring, the water would form on top of the ice making it more challenging as if we fell, we would be soaked. Julie's mother would beat her if she came home with her snow pants sopping wet. But, we would take the challenge, whereas we were pretty good at skating by then. You know how that turned out... of course, Julie fell and got soaking wet. "We'll have to go to the hideout and I'll take them off to dry." (That would only have taken a few days, but what did we know.) We finally found the hut, and crawled in. Julie took her pants off and together we tried to wring them out. It was clear then that they wouldn't dry quickly, so we looked for matches, and sure enough, the boys had left a store of them. We took them outside, broke off dead dry branches, and started a campfire so we could hang her pants over it and dry them out. All we succeeded in doing was to warm them up and give them a nice hickory smoke aroma.

I forget what happened next. She probably went home with her warm smokey pants, and got a good spanking, while I went home directly so I wouldn't get any blame along with my poor friend who had to confront her mom.

I thought about that today. It's near the end of cross country skiing season, and it was just great out there today. Even going up small slopes I got some glide, and floated over the field above as if suspended on air... the next best thing to hovering over the land on glider wings. My dog Bear was always within view. Polly was within our ear range barking at the smells of wild things that came out to view their shadow or whatever. The field isn't flat, but kind of domed so that you can easily push up the slope until you find yourself going gently down the other side effortlessly.

I skied down from the field to the lake, hugging the snowy sides of the road, atop the drift made by their plowing the road throughout the winter. Once over where the water cuts under the road, I went to my left below the cabin boarded up for the winter, and went along the ridge of the gorge below where the water was at its gurgling best... melodic and bubbling, not roaring like later when the snow melts. As I moved along the edge, over swells of snow, over snow covered logs of the fallen deadwood, weaving through the bushes and trees, I remembered my skating through the woods near School Street in North Woburn with Julie. I remembered how great it was to have the companionship of a friend... my very first girlfriend in the world. And I felt like that pigtailed girl on ice skates, weaving through the trees, skating through woods that seemed like living a life from a storybook. I was doing it again... on skis.

Julie, I hope you remember those things now. What nice memories. What great times we had together, before we went in separate directions, being forced by nature to grow up and put away our childish things. I hope you take out your "childish things" and still play once in awhile. I hope you have companions to do it with whether a friend or a furry one.