It snowed gloriously last week. I enjoyed this first 'snow day' in a year enormously. Then for this Martin Luther King weekend, I went off to Waterville Valley in New Hampshire with a bunch of women for a winter ski weekend.It may seem a bit off, to go off with some women friends for an MLK weekend, particularly to New Hampshire where the weekend is called 'Civil Rights' weekend, and especially after the events in Tucson on the prior weekend. But I am neither unhappy nor feeling guilty about it.
I am not unhappy because the joy I felt in finding my ski legs again, is not to be replaced. I have not skied for over 10 years, and I was a bit worried about skiing downhill. The possibilities of breaking things is higher than in CrossCountry(I felt), and I could ski right out the door on XC skiis. But it IS like riding a bicycle; I put on my newish XC skiis and glided right on down to the Village Market in Waterville Valley. It felt terribly good, and was a great workout!
I skied the next day, too, with the women I was staying with and we covered a series of trails. The snow was as perfect as it gets for XC skiing - on two inches of fresh powder on slightly packed trails. Glorious!
Not the sands of Tucson - which was on everyone's mind still.
I cannot understand the inability of us as a people to do something about the availability of multiple shot weaponry, whether we talk about automatics, semiautomatics, or multi-bulleted magazines. When my ex-husband took a stand in Congress against semi-automatic weapons, and then was defeated in his reelection, some hunter friends who understood the problem created a bumper-sticker, " Real Vermonters Only Need One Shot."
People in rural places need to be able to hunt, often to feed their families. People in suburban and urban areas are only shooting other people. So why should we provide them with easy access to semi-automatic weapons? It is something that I will never understand, and I used to be a member of the NRA as a Girl Scout camper!
Unlike the shooter in Tucson, us women this MLK weekend thought a lot about staying in the present, and living life to the fullest - for ourselves so that we may serve others. Feeling the glory of great snow under skiis replenished my soul this weekend, and I do not think Martin Luther King would begrudge me that pleasure every now and then, when the snow is glorious.
How very true, and worth saying again and again. I was in a small town that was briefly the capital of Biafra when CNN (oh my, someone take away their Kool Aid) had the Tuscon news. Friends in Umuahia just shook their heads: nothing unusual about a politician, a judge being shot, and children caught in cross fire. But light in darkness, and the perfection of powder over packed trails.
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