SNOWGIRL

Kaya stayed here last night, sleeping downstairs in front of the stove as it snowed heavily all night, and you should have heard the footsteps when she got up first this morning and ran from window to door to room to window opening curtains to see all the snow that had fallen, the most this year, all the trees were white even the air was white, the big fat flakes still falling...

I was still in bed and listened to the little footsteps running everywhere, pulling back the curtains and yelling Snow! Then to the big doors out to the deck, in all this running every now and then a jumping-up-and-down break, then to the downstairs bedroom to look out back, then back to the deck where the snow was drifting to her height, all in rapid tiny footsteps exactly the sound of joy.

Then after an apple pancake breakfast we went outside but Kaya (who had said Let's go out!) was suddeny afraid of the snow, it was such a new deepness, so I carried her out to the road, set her down in the wheel ruts and we walked up the mountain road in the heightening storm, then across the slope and down and back for home, but by then Kaya was having so much fun she didn't want to go inside, so I went and got the sled from where it was snowburied between the firewood cords and Kaya rode it down the steep road, slid and zipped, tumbled and rolled and squealed then did it all again and again until she became a walking snowgirl.

Then we gathered up some nice clean mountain snow in a ricebowl and brought it inside where we poured black cherry concentrate all over it and ate it with smiles and spoons, while musing over getting some really big spoons and buckets full of black cherry concentrate to splash around outside and eating all the snow that was out there, how great that would be, just like our own little bowl of snow.