Freeze

There is a tangled rose bush outside the window, twinkling with gold and silver droplets, its casing of ice now melted by the low hanging noon sun. A bird, perching on an arching stalk, startles into the air. The rose, for a moment, is a fountain of cascading sparks. I’m sitting in a square of sunline, gleefully appreciating feeling warm after my sub-zero degree run through the early morning woods, crunching through frozen leaves, mud and puddles. It’s been a week of waking up to a world frosted in white and late afternoon fires to warm our chilly barn apartment once the sun dips below the hill. L, rose-cheeked and bright eyed after a weekend walk, looked back through old photographs with me, at pictures and movies of her and her sister smiling for the camera beneath ski helmets and googles, splashing in a steaming hot tub outside a mountain cabin, smashing their birthday pinatas in our Seattle garden, devouring sticky donuts at Mighty O’s. Their faces were bright with happiness and delight. I wished I could go back and cuddle those gorgeous younger carefree children of mine with their rounded limbs and eager smiles. All too fast, it seems to me, these girls have lost their innocence. In September A will be starting Secondary School, where her peers will have phones and crushes and fake eyelashes. I find this interesting and unsettling, but she is already more worldly than L was at her age, having been exposed to more innuendo at her tiny British village school than L was at her large Seattle elementary. This week at school L will be deciding which 9 subjects she would like to study for the next two years of school. Teachers will be asking her to think ahead, to consider what 3 subjects she may want to take for the last 2 years of school, maybe what she might like to study at university, how she wants to earn money and live her future grown-up life. Can we slow down just a little bit please?