I’d been eyeing the sled for a couple of weeks. It had seen better days, but, then again, so have I. So I figured what the heck and went back to the thrift store to buy the “Orsa Sparkin,” an old wooden kicksled, badly in need of a dowel and few nails and more importantly in need of someone to ride it.
The ol’ sled needed to feel its rails race through the snow like I needed to feel the wind in my hair. Digging through the back room to reach the sled, there in the corner was it’s tiny accomplice, a child-sized red kicksled I’d overlooked when I first noticed the original one I’d been thinking about. Like Goose and I, they could simply not be separated, so I bought them both and began pondering where I would take them for our inaugural expedition, and it didn’t take long for fate to step in and decide the perfect adventure, a kindred heart to provide the perfect company and Mother Nature to provide the perfect lesson.
“Look Mommy, I am a dragon,” Goose said as she blew a puff of warm breath into the backyard morning air and watched as it hung thick, lingering in front of us, beautiful yet fleeting.
“Do you know what that is,” I ask. “It is a moment in time, frozen in front of you.”
I told her when she was born that I couldn’t exhale a breath because I wanted to hold that moment inside of me forever, so when she was laid upon my chest and she breathed out for the first time, I inhaled deeply instead of exhaling and I took that momentous instant for my soul.
I have only had two real moments in my life that were truly breathtaking, and I hold them close to my heart. When I close my eyes and inhale deeply, I can call upon them and feel them hanging there, deep in my soul, just like the little clouds of air Goose is chasing around our wintery backyard.
She ran off after her little puff of air trying to cup it in her hands before it inevitably disappeared.
“I can’t catch my breath,” she hollered, her mittened hands flailing wildly in the air trying to catch the uncatchable.
And, in that moment, I decided an adventure was in order and set out to take her to one of my favorite places to see our breath and to try really hard to catch it.
It was perfect timing to go chase a moment in time, a day all about time in fact: it was New Year’s Eve, and we headed north to Electra Lake to the other place in my life where my breath had once been taken away, while my world stood still and I inhaled the other beautiful instant that floats in my soul, for a moonlit farewell to 2015.
The moon, full and as bright as the white snow reflected beneath it, hung like a beacon in the sky above us, illuminating the promise of the New Year ahead. We suited up in our snow gear and checked the thermometer. It read 10 degrees, the perfect temperature for seeing one’s breath turn into little moments in time.
We strapped a headlamp on the handle of the Orsa Sparkin and were off, me riding on the rails and Goose on the rickety seat, so excited I could feel her smile, kicking and gliding down the moonlit path.
The ol’ sled forgot about her missing dowel or that her rails were a bit crooked and took off remembering her glory days. The harder I kicked, the more moments of breath hung in front of us, mine flowing into Gooses making bigger clouds that intertwined before disappearing behind us. Her little hands in the air, trying to catch every one of them.
As the year came to a close and a New Year’s worth of possibilities and adventures lies in front of us, breath becomes even more important. With every kick of my foot, I found myself exhaling what I have been holding onto, and as I glided through the snow, resting on the rails, I found myself inhaling the possibility that comes with newness, my breath hanging in the air in front of me for a split second reminding me to appreciate the moment because it is fleeting and, more importantly, because it’s the little fleeting moments that accumulate to make a life.
We got up the next morning, the sun bright on a new bluebird day, a New Year, a new opportunity for happiness and set out on another kicksled adventure, the moon still visible even in the bright daylight serving as a reminder of the memory we made and the lesson we learned the night before.
As we’d set out to catch Goose’s breath, I wanted her to learn that being aware of one’s own breath is to be aware of more than the moment. It is to be aware of yourself. With the final kick of my foot, we glided back to the cabin, and I realized that what I’d been chasing on that moonlit adieu to the past year was the very breath that had taken mine away, and I caught it.
Jenny can be reached at jennyandgooseoutdoors@outlook.com
