we live so high above the ground / satellites surround us

I went skiing today! It's part of Project Get Out of the House On Weekends, and the Siren came round this morning at nine am when I was half-asleep and half-wondering why I'd agreed to it, but I tumbled out the door and we picked up Baby E and the air was fresh and surprisingly non-chilled - it was a delicious six degrees above today - and the fields rolled picturesquely out under the sky on the drive up, and by the time we got there I was surprisingly enthused about the whole thing. The idea was to maybe do some things that I won't get the opportunity to do after this year, and there was a decent offer on and it would've been foolish not to.

(I am not one of life's natural winter sportspeople, I should mention. The last time I went skiing I was twelve, in the Italian Alps (with shipperkitten? remind me) and I was very bad at it indeed and also hated it rather. The Siren went skiing in Austria once when she was nine; Baby E glared all round and said, "Yes, there is so much good skiing in sub-Saharan Africa." Great, I said, we shall all make idiots of ourselves together.)

So off we trundled through this odd greyish warmish day, and were giggled at by the person who sold us lift passes because of our utter ineptitude, and having explained to the ski rental people the very good reason why not one of the three of us has a New York state driver's licence, we went for a beginners' lesson on what the Siren persists in referring to as the bunny slopes. (We were sharing them with, predictably, an army of tiny, earnest and horrifyingly competent children. They were very patient. I especially liked the curly-haired five-year-old snowboarder who apologised to me when I got in the way of his immaculate descent.)

And, well... first I still hated it. So awkward! My ankles were not made for this, etc. Then I unexpectedly glided down a gentle incline perfectly balanced on one foot. And after I had helped haul Baby E up one too many times and she declared us all masochists and that it was time for lunch, and lunch had been had, I went up to the top of the bunny slope and took a deep breath and went for it. At first I was terrified, and then I was astonished I was still on my feet, still moving, and then I was starting not to be terrified, and then I'd come to a gentle stop and the slope had my descent marked neatly on the snow behind me. And then I tramped up to the little chairlift to do it a few more times.

And, I get it now, I do, I get why people go such hideous effort and expense to do this. It's because once it clicked - once I could turn and stop and no longer worried too much about losing my footing underneath me - it was transcendent. It's the closest you'll get to flying in this life. And something - something about the silence and the sweep of snow, and the toothpaste-freshness of the air - something just made it right.

I desperately want to go back, and the Siren agrees. It was a wonderful day.