I should have been born a bear. Or a chipmunk. Any animal, really, that hibernates in the winter. I feel a kinship to these animals who share my belief that plunging temperatures are Nature’s way of saying: “Go away! Seriously, I mean it.”
For those who don’t heed her warning, Nature has to get real: “I guess you thought I was playing around? How about a little frostbite to set you straight? Or some hypothermia? Hey, don’t let that jagged icicle impale you on your way indoors.”
Nature doesn’t have to tell me twice. She had me at frostbite.
When it gets cold, to say nothing of freezing, my fight-or-flight instinct is unambiguous. I flee to warmth and cocoa and couches and books and Netflix. If I could curl up in a cave, lower my body temperature and slow my heart rate to one beat every forty five seconds, I would do it. What could be better than sleeping for three months straight? Wake me when it’s spring.
So I find it perplexing that there are many people who take freezing temperatures as an invitation to head outdoors, and to remain there for hours, and to exert themselves physically, to the point of perspiration.
I’m talking about winter sports.
A few caveats: First, I am not a sporty person in general. You won’t find me playing volleyball on the beach either, though it does strike me as easy, natural pathway to fun. You’re lying there in the sun, doing nothing, and you see a ball in the soft sand. Huh, might be fun to give it a whack. Why not? I get that.
Second, it is true that winter seems to serve as an activator to my anxiety, the way contact lens solution magically turns glue into slime. In spring, summer and fall, I am a generally level-headed person with reasonable worries. Add snow. ice and a five o’clock sunset to the mix and I make Woody Allen look relaxed.
So it is that when I look at sleds, I see only broken femurs and concussions. When I look at skis, it’s all paralysis and massive head injuries. Who can tell which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it is true that I did go skiing once, when I was sixteen, and it did not go well.
I successfully rode the lift to the top of the hill. That part was fun, I concede. Then, on my way to the starting point at the hilltop, I crashed into a tree, and broke my ski. I had to slide down the hill on my heavily-insulated butt.
So I do not ski. Or sled, either. But since I have three kids, aged 6, 11, and 14, people are always inviting me and the kids to join them in these activities.
No sooner does the first layer of snow settle on the asphalt then moms and dads start texting:
“Want 2 meet @park 2 sled?”
And all I can think is, “Why?”
It’s like asking, “Want 2 get a colonoscopy?”
I will, if I must, but I don’t want to. Similarly, I would sled, were it necessary. The thing about parenting is, you realize that there is nothing you would not do, if you had to. If I found myself in a frozen tundra and the only source of food was three miles away, I’d fashion coats for my children and I from the skins of wolves, gnaw a tree down with my teeth and construct a sleigh. Then I’d sled the hell out of those three miles.
But for fun? No, no, a thousands times no.
Despite my long-standing aversion to winter sports, I want my kids to have fun, nay, magical winters, and I allow for the fact that these sports may be a part of that fun. So, I have made a small exception to my policy. Every year, I take the kids ice skating.
It’s probably just as dangerous as the other sports, but it is far easier than sledding, and a fraction of the cost of skiing. Also, the outfits are way better. Even a Grinch is powerless to resist the charm of pom-poms.
On our annual skating excursion, I put helmets on the kids, and inform them of the hazards they must avoid. The one that I’ve fixated on is the danger of falling down on your hands and knees and having your fingers severed by a reckless skater who has accumulated too much momentum to stop. It’s not the worst thing that could happen on the ice, to be sure, but it is, strangely, the most vivid scenario in my mind. So we practice popping back up to our feet from prone positions until our digits seem sufficiently protected..
Then, we skate. Or, more accurately, we cling to the side of the rink and expend massive, immoderate amounts of effort remaining upright. We pant and whine and laugh and do Tonya Harding impressions. Then, suffused with relief at having survived the endeavor, I hobble off the ice and buy everyone cocoa.
And I think, There, we did it. Magical winter fun accomplished.
When my kids grow up, I have no doubt that one of them will move to Colorado, or Alaska, or some other place where winter is supersized. One of them undoubtedly will become a professional luger. And when that happens, I will put on my wolf skin coat, and brave the snow and ice to see them. Because I must.
Until then, you’ll find me on my couch, with the thermostat working overtime. Just like the bears do.