Welcome to the land of snowflakes the size of cinnabuns, burning shins, and 30 minute meals. Did you watch the video of BBD and me up at Vail Pass last Tuesday? Or did you, like some, not see that little arrow at the bottom of the picture and thought it was a snapshot? Not that it matters, we're not doing anything so spectacular. When we're hucking off cliffs, I'll let you know. Or maybe I won't, since so many of my faithful few blog-readers do not appreciate the fact that we would consider a sport with the potential for injury.

Since the day on Vail Pass, we made a flying trip to Kansas for Bobby's Uncle Jerry's funeral. Funerals are always... well. One is there to say goodbye, to honor a life, all the good and bad that went into living it and shaped the person, to mourn the fact that the goodbye is for such a long time. But at the same time, the whole family is together, and everyone, with their new appreciation for life, is there to confirm for each other that we now remember what is truly important- us, the living. It is so good to be able to spend time together, joy mixed with tears. We hated to have to say goodbye to Jerry. I have known him for six years, and I am so glad I got six years in this family to get to know him, even though the last few of those years he has been battling ALS. For those of you who don't know this, we bought our jeep from them when he lost the muscle control to be able to navigate the manual transmission. We love you, Aunt Linda, and the rest of the Collinses.

Every time we go back to Kansas lately, it is for some emotionally-charged event. Reunions, weddings and funerals. And every time, the land itself plays so much into the event that when remembered, we also remember the wind, the blowing dust, the brown sky and bending grass. I remember that, now- the sense of place one always had there. Here on top of the continental divide, one is filled with awe inspired by ones beautiful surroundings, by the discovery that it is ok to play, even as adults, to release ones inner child and simply do things for the thrill of it. But I have not felt that sense of... oh goodness, it's hard to describe. Being numbed into exhausted silence simply from being buffetted by the wind. Wind like a blast furnace, drying and burning, that force that pushes incessantly until one swears, if one has to withstand one more gust, one will scream. And one more gust comes, and another, and another... a shared water jug, ice rattling, on the floorboard of an ancient farm truck, the taste of wheat kernals, chewed and chewed until the gluten is developed and it becomes rubbery like chewing gum, the rustle of corn leaves, the utter silence when the wind stops, patterns of wind in grass, silvery paths over bending heads of wheat, grasshoppers hitting legs, arms, faces. Do you feel it yet? Always, that love/hate feeling for the land, in spite of what one is loving or hating otherwise. One remembers events by the weather. Our wedding day, blowing dirt and a tornado sighting by Tribune. Hot, so hot. Shivering, damp wind cutting through our dark clothes at Grandmas funeral. Funerals are remembered not by the church services, but by the graveyard interment ceremonies, how hot, how windy, how cold. How desolate the horizon looks, past the huddle of mourners, and how small and insignificant we are, how that, in the space between here and the horizon, things will go on unchanged by this cataclysmic event we are so involved in. Our lives, the joys and sorrows, won't make a bit of difference between here and that empty horizon. The words, the songs are lost in the wind, carried away, gone before they even reach the edge of the group of people. The emotions one feels in Kansas are made more so by the fickle weather, the desolate land, the small, lost-looking main streets. (Now, understand, I am speaking of Western Kansas. Central and Eastern Kansas are entirely different experiences.)

And the people. It is one thing to go back to Marienthal, where we know everyone or at least of everyone, and so do not look at them through the eyes of strangers. But in Sharon Springs, the farmers in their seed caps, in their saggy Levis and cotton shirts, engraved belts and dusty boots take on a mythical quality, an "oh... I've already seen this movie" feeling. I am as curious about them, now, as I was about the dreadlocked snowboard culture when I first moved to Summit County. And I haven't even been gone that long. It is amazing how adaptable we humans are to changing cultures. Or maybe it's just me, accused as I stand of being chameleon, too eager for change, with little regard to constants. Oh, it has caused a few debates with my nearest and dearests. And after this time away, when people ask if I would move back, I reply that I do not know. I love it as fiercely as I hate it.

(later) I write best in the mornings. The creative juices are fresh, the sugar from my morning apple is hitting my brain, I am procrastinating going to work. The former half of this post was written yesterday morning. By now I have waxed less... whatever that was.

By late afternoon, when I am finished working, my brain is sluggish but my body wants activity. That is when I try to get outside and do something- cross country skiing has been the activity of choice lately. It is hard work, especially for me with my super skinny, light skis picked up on the cheap from a local consignment store. Everyone else has aggressive fishscales and metal edges. Not me. Mine are nordic-center only, although I have yet to take them on the groomed trails of a nordic center. They shoot out behind me on icy hills, and the round plastic edges do not hold on those same downhills I drop into on my bike in the summer, in the web of trails we now live on the edge of. I can not imagin not living by trails anymore. How did we do it? Oh, one is always a short drive from a trailhead here, but I am one of the lucky few who can walk out my front door, click into my skis, ski down to the trailhead, make a thigh-burning loop, pop out above my house, and ski right back to my front door without ever crossing my own tracks. The other night, I got home about dark, skied up to the front steps, climbed the steps with my skis on, then walked into the house still wearing them (i was trying to be funny, imitating Harry in Dumb and Dumber. I try so shamelessly to make my husband laugh at times it is tragic. His giggles are hard to come by in the winter sometimes.)

Anyway, he did shower me with a condescending smile, may have even humored me with a laugh, which was all I was asking for anyway, then told me to "quit screwing around before someone gets hurt". I sat down on the couch, released the bindings, and propped my skis on end... and one of them slipped out of my grasp. It fell straight across his shin, his feet propped as they were on the coffee table, and instantly the humor fled the situation. He sported a bruise on his shin for a while thereafter. I don't know why, certainly not because I hurt him but probably because my plan backfired so royally, I still giggle when I think of it. He, of course, was instantly livid, but he couldn't be for long because I was so penitant.

The last full moon we had one really warm night, so I set out on my skis about dusk, headlamp in my backpack. The memory of it remains one of the more beautiful places inside my head. As dusk turned dark, the light just never went away, only became more silvery. Even in the forests, shafts of light illuminated the trails. Mountains ten miles away stood with each craggy face lit in silver relief, golden town glowing at their base, my shadow only gray, not black, beside me. I never used my headlamp. When I got home, I was still a bit transformed by it, and dissapointed by the fact that once home there was nothing to do but go inside, where the lights were too bright. I begged and begged, and finally got Bobby dragged outside and we climbed to the ridge above the house and stood watching the gold and silver valley until we began to shiver and followed the trail, hard-packed into two feet of snow, back down to the house.

Wendell is sleeping in our spare room at the moment, and I am wondering if I should wake him because he had considered snowboarding today, and with only five arrivals, four of them back-to-backs that are still occupied by last nights guests, I will have some time on my hands. Freda's Incubator (A.K.A. the baby park, the wussie park, the little park) has some really good jump lines right now, and I want to hit them. They are just big enough to get the thrill of some air miles (ok, feet) without descending to a landing from twenty feet in the air. I am such a baby in the park lately. "ohh, I dont wanna get hurt! Ahh, I'm afraid! Noo, I can't hit that! Waa, I'm not good enough!" Never mind that I have hit the full-sized features in the past, nailed some, biffed some, and lived to tell. Now, rails terrify me, tabletops intimidate me, boxes worry me, and I cant get up to the lip on the half pipe before I chicken out and bail. And now I even have a helmet! I hit all the features three years ago with a bare head. I don't know why i'm such a baby these days. Even the bump lines and the tree runs are feeling a bit shifty under me this year. Part of it is my longer, heavier board, so stable on the crud, but not as light and responsive under me when precision riding is called for, but I suspect a bigger part of it is I am less in shape, dragging a little more junk in the trunk, more easily fatigued than last year because I have not been out as much. And I am comparing my early- spring shape of last year to my mid-season shape this year. I didnt ride much last year until early spring because it was such a bitterly cold season, but once spring rolled around, I was ready. I had been running, stationary biking, swimming, rowing and lifting all winter. This year, we are both finally getting so soft we have decided that a rec center pass is inevitable, even though we are no longer living so close to it, so we will have to plan our days around our work outs instead of having them be the afterthoughts they were last year. I remember making run after run down the 'Zuma line last year, my knees to my chest, then my board behind me, launching on my toe edge, landing on my heel edge, snow chunks hitting my face, gyrating and flexing and catching air with each bump, hitting the end of it and tasting blood in my mouth from breathing so hard, soaked in sweat, shivering up to the top of the Montezuma chair and doing it again. I haven't ridden like that this year. I want to, but I just don't get the days. And when I try, I just can't do it. I'm chicken and I'm soft. Bobby did not even get a pass this year. I need to ride with someone who pushes me, but everyone else, like me, is too busy to go out. Oh, well, we are happy we have jobs.

And now, it is time to close the laptop and start doing the stuff that life is made of.