CHOOSE YOUR RIDE. Growing up in New Hampshire, I had the opportunity to go to a progressive public high school that emphasized collaboration, creativity and authentic experiences over desks in rows and high stakes final exams. In that spirit, our senior project was supposed to be a showcase of our learning, incorporating math, writing, science, art, history, you-name-it into one glorious mega performance that, ideally, targeted one of our personal passions. Brad focused on golf, Carolyn on the theater, Elizabeth on vegetarian cooking, and me... on paragliding. I built mini parafoil wings out of rip-stop nylon, studied Bernoulli's Principle, and took lessons running off of hilltops and tasting a few minutes of flight. A few years later, during a college fellowship, I snuck away on weekends to the local airport and learned to skydive, again thrilling at the feeling of speed and freedom, playing above our marble blue and green planet with colorful billows, back lit by sun.
Fast forward to post-30. Somewhere between realizing my responsibility to stay alive for my new little person, and noticing that roller coasters were starting to make me queasy, my love of jumping off of mountains and out of planes began to wane. When we took a commercial flight and the pilot's voice would come over the intercom, "We are now passing through 10,000 feet en route to our cruising altitude blah, blah, blah...," I would look out the window and think to myself, "Dear God! I would jump out of these things at this height! I was freaking crazy!"
Then a few weeks ago, I learned about a new-to-me sport that uses a "kitewing," a hand-held sail that is advertised with lines like, "choose your ride (skates, skis, skateboards or rollerblades, etc) and your surface (ice, snow, pavement, sand, etc) and fly." (kitewing.com) Fly? With skates or skis on my feet? I was suddenly off the wagon and signing up for a super chill free clinic pulled together by friends here in Seward.
Trying to find some wind, we meet at the Seward airport on a glorious sunny day.
Later we move to near-by Bear Lake and I feel the wind pull at my wing for the first time.
As I flew down low, J was flying high on Mt. Eva right above. It is a rare treat to have good skiable snow all the way down to the ocean this year, and we can climb from trail heads right in town.
In theory, once one masters the kitewing, it can be used on mountain descents as well... Now that would be seriously off the wagon.
Kim joins J to fly up high on a Valentine's weekend date, without a kitewing... for now!
PINK. This past week has been ripe with rich and honest conversations in our family. Leadership, diversity, respect, human, courage... I suspect many of you have been exploring similar fodder. During one such chat of ours that included ideas about skin color, Indigo declared, "well if you think about it, we're all pink on the inside." Indeed.
Our favorite coffee shop in Seward, Resurrection Art (in an old church), had some foggy windows today... and a pink sunset on the mountains beyond.
COMMUNITY. Some friends and I had planned to hook up in Anchorage on Saturday for the Women's March. As it continued to dump snow on Friday night and digging out our cars, let alone driving them, became less and less likely, we began to text about the potential of rallying some folks here in Seward, maybe even with skis on our feet, to do our own version of a march. Someone threw out an intersection near the Sea Life Center; I threw out 2PM; and the social media world took its course...
Indigo (and Lily) lead the charge as upwards of 100 people sing and chant and chat their way along an ocean path.
Purple and green on the outside, and pink on the inside.
HOPE. As the sun set and folks headed home, our little family retreated to the back yard to the snow cave Indigo and J had worked on during the morning. Candles lit, puffs of breath warming the small space, our little world felt safe and strong and whole.
The entrance.
All together.
And then this morning, the sun came out and all the new snow glittered and flashed. J and I had a "date day" and climbed the mountain behind our house, taking in views of the bay and then skiing down through the fresh three feet of powder, laughing and shrieking like little kids. A needed reminder that there is so much beauty in this world...
Descending from heaven...
A gift near the top of our climb - what appears to be the "track" from a bird, touching down for a moment before taking a few wing beats to lift up again...
And finally, in the spirit of keeping friends and family close (and not having so many holiday cards return to sender), here is our new address in Seward:
