Marcia LeBeau

When speaking at my father’s funeral last fall, I shared how when I was little, he would lift me on his shoulders so I could pluck a leaf off each tree in our yard and how he would tell me what kind of tree it was—sassafras, birch, maple. It wasn’t surprising when my poem “Inhaling Dirt” dug itself out of my subconscious after I read a haiku by Kikakon—A blind child/Guided by his mother,/Admires the cherry blossoms. This led me to magnolia petals on the driveway of my youth and returned my longing to be more connected to the natural world as an adult. How I admire those grown-ups who seem to naturally get there, like the woman at the end of my poem. Often, I’m too distracted with the everyday to spend much time outside, especially in the winter. But yesterday, I did something that surprised me—and shocked my family. I got up before work and announced I was going sledding. Neither one of my teenagers wanted to go with me (“Delayed openings are meant for sleep, Mom!”) and certainly not my husband. Undeterred, I bundled up, grabbed a sled from the garage, and walked a mile to the best hill in town. One that’s usually dotted with bright colors—families careening down the steep slope. At 8am, it was just me and a woman with her young daughter. I hadn’t been sledding in years. As snow filled the trees more, I went for it—first upright, then headfirst. I flew fast and screamed loud. I hit a bump and got serious air. When I got to the bottom, I rolled out of the sled and into the snowy earth and it held me. Back at the house, no one was too interested in my early morning adventure, and my body is definitely paying for it today, but I wouldn’t change a thing. My version of the woman with “a violet tucked behind each ear.” May I emulate her joy more often.