When I was a little kid, my Dad used to take us sledding at The Pit. A questionably safe, still in use/long out of use gravel pit where gigantic trucks would dig up clay for some unknown, terribly mysterious and ghost-story-romantic reason. (At least in the head of a seven year-old.)
I was a pretty short person- especially back then- but I don’t think I’m exaggerating in the slightest when I say that the clay hills comprising The Pit were monstrously high, slicker than oil, and steep as a mother. They also froze like nothing else in the neighborhood. It takes a special Dad to trek out with two (and later four) little girls in the winter, especially since the ratio of time spent layering in snow gear to time spent in the actual out-of-doors was never an impressive figure.
I’ve always had a special Dad.
Patiently bundling us up alongside my Mom, he’d walk us past the bunny slope of the neighborhood; the gently curved hill right next door to our house. Down the bump of our street, long past the extension of what we all termed Rollercoaster Hill (which always made me fear I’d have to pee when we drove down it, we were going so fast). And into The Pit. I don’t remember my sisters ever being as much of a ‘fraidy cat as I was(/am), but I can recall with crystal clarity the nerves in my belly as we’d approach the first of those dirt peaks.
“We’ll all just go up halfway,” he’d assure me. And then we would. I’d drag my trusty orange plastic sled up the hill and pray it wouldn’t crack on the way down. (I named that sled Creamsicle. Back then, I named everything Creamsicle, including an orange and white motorized pony outside of Kmart which, to the best of my knowledge, I did not own. True story.)
The sled didn’t crack on the way down. So he’d suggest we go up a few feet higher the next go ’round, just for fun. By the second ascent, he’d usually be pulling Creamsicle, as well as the Red Baron (which my sister may not even have realized until this very moment that’s what I called her sled) and any other straggler sleds from other straggler sisters. He never complained- not even when we complained. We’d go higher and higher up the mini mountains, and then turn around and go soaring and bumping our plasticky way back down.
Now and again- not every time, mind you- I’d realize I’d agreed to a height that I probably oughtn’t have, and I’d realize that I would not be sliding down this hill, thankyouverymuchallthesame. He’d just scoot me to the front of Creamsicle and, before I knew it, a jean-clad leg would be on either side of my sled. (We would all be layered up for a month in the Arctic, and this guy would just be wearing jeans.)
“Come on, Keel.”
And we’d fly down. And it would be terrifying and exhilarating and terrifying some more. And, yeah, really ridiculously exhilarating.
He never once said anything pithy like “You’ve got to face your fears” or something stupid like that. Aside from the occasional “Buck up” (which, good Lord, has just so much universal appeal), he kept the platitudes to a minimum and just sort of coaxed us along until we realized that it was our idea, that there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of, skipping down a sheet of ice like flat stones across a lake.
So, yeah. I know how to be brave. I know how to just keep going until the fear has mostly subsided and I realize that, even though the hill is made of black ice and will probably hurt like hell on the way down, sometimes you just have to buck up. I can be brave.
I learned from the best.
Speak Your Mind