Perfect Day

One of my favorite parts of living in this little town is having my parents and my brother, Adam, so close to me.  My parents live around the corner from us in one direction, and Adam and his family live around the corner in the other direction.  After many years apart because of distance—geographic on his part, deliberate stupid choice on mine—one of the greatest blessings of my life in the last few years has been getting to know Adam again.

Adam and I are still polar opposites.  Our differences were more obvious when we were growing up.  I was quiet, introspective, and very shy.  Adam was loud, gregarious, and extroverted.  I read about girls who had best friends; Adam traveled with a pack of friends.  My bedroom walls were covered with kitten posters and bookshelves.  Adam’s bedroom was filled with guitars, amps, and his pet rats.  I loved reading and writing.  Adam couldn’t sit still long enough to do either.  When my pet rabbit died, I couldn’t look at it.  Adam waited a few weeks and dug it up so that he could see what a rabbit’s corpse looked like.  I hated the days when we had to play dodgeball at recess.  Adam lived for those days.  I read a book about detectives and convinced Mom to buy us a magnifying glass to solve mysteries.  Adam used it to focus sunlight on ants and send them to a fiery death.

One thing we agreed on?  We both loved sledding.  We loved it best on snow days, but we didn’t have too many of those.  We went to a small Christian school, and it seemed like the public schools always canceled classes at the mere hint of a snowflake—ours almost never did.  We’d look with envy at the public junior high across the street, dark and quiet, then trudge into our school.  On a few very rare occasions, the public schools didn’t cancel, but ours did, which meant our favorite sledding hill would be empty.

Getting ready to go sledding was a whole event in itself.  Adam would be waiting by the front door for me, dressed and ready to go, while Mom made sure I had on about four pairs of pants, a coat so heavy and padded that it was probably bulletproof, earmuffs, mittens, and a scarf wrapped around my neck so many times that only my eyeballs peeped out.  That was the uniform for an asthmatic sledder.  Mom would put my giant moon boots on for me because I was too unwieldy with all the clothes layers on to bend over.  Finally, armed with inhalers and warnings from Mom to slow down if I started wheezing, we left.

Adam had various sleds over the years, but he usually used an inner tube.  He’d fly down the hill, getting airborne over the little ramps we made.  My sled was the sled Mom used when she was a little girl.  This sled would have made a wonderful exhibit at the Smithsonian, with its wooden body and shiny runners.  It looked like a prop from a black and white Christmas movie.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast or steady.  It wobbled so much when I sat on it that I thought it had a mind of its own and was determined to kill me.  There was a rope attached to the front end of it that was supposed to steer it.  It didn’t.  I never ended up anywhere near where I thought I was going.  That possessed sled went where it wanted to and always threw me off of it before I was anywhere near the bottom of the hill.  The only thing the “steering” rope was good for was holding on for dear life.

Still, I loved sledding with Adam.  There was a park not far from us that we could walk to, and it had the best hill in town for sledding.  And on those rare days when our school alone had a snow day, Adam and I had it all to ourselves.  After a few runs down the hill, our tracks got hard and icy, so we could go faster.  Adam would lie on his stomach on his inner tube and be down the hill before my creaking wooden sled even got started.  The ride down felt both treacherous and wonderful, as I felt the cold air on my small area of exposed skin and saw the park flying by.  I’d have a few amazing seconds before my sled decided it was time to head for a tree, stop abruptly and send me flying into a snowbank, or just randomly flip over.  Adam waited at the bottom of the hill for me, and I could hear him laughing every time I wrecked, which made me laugh.  We’d trudge back up the hill and do it again, over and over.

One time, when we were halfway up the hill, Adam said he was tired and ready to go home.  I wanted one last run, so I dragged my sled up to the top of the hill while Adam waited.  I was coming down the hill when I hit something, did a near flip in the air, and landed on my stomach.  I laid there for a second, inwardly thanking Mom for the layers of clothes and the giant puffy coat that I thought had saved my life.  And I heard Adam laughing.  Slowly, I got to my feet and saw his tube next to my sled.  He had flipped his tube towards me like a hockey puck on ice when I was halfway down the hill.  His timing was perfect—his tube hit my sled, causing it to flip and send me way up into the air.  I dragged my antique sled and his tube over to him and told him he could have killed me.  That only made him laugh harder.  Which made me laugh.  We laughed the whole walk home, then laughed again when we got home and he retold the story.

He still laughs about it.  He’s still very proud of his perfect timing in sending his tube into my sled.  And he still makes me laugh about it because he does.  This is a screenshot of our texts from this morning.  Mine are on the right:

Would I go sledding with Adam again?  Absolutely, if we could find even the smallest hill around here.  I’d put on a heavy layer of clothes, put my inhaler in my pocket, and have Monty help me with my boots.  Then I’d get the most modern of inner tubes (the possessed sled has been retired, probably to some dark recess in my parents’ garage) and meet up with Adam.  And yes, I would sled down a hill with him waiting for me halfway down.  Would he “sabotage” me again?  No question.  Would I care?  No—as long as I survived it again.  I’d expect it.  And I’d be disappointed if he didn’t—because that’s Adam.  Perfect brother.  Perfect friend.  Perfect day.

For Adam: we loved this song back then.  And I mean it now.