The world behind my house

There was an adventure. It happened behind my house.

Kevin made it happen. After I complained that there were no good hills within walking distance to sled, he explored. His scouting yielded a discovery: an abandoned rail line created a hill in woods behind our house. Let there be sledding.

Two other friends donated super light-weight sleds. Kevin and I trudged into the football field at the end of our block. Our feet cracked the ice and sunk into the snow. And sometimes they didn't. Sometimes our weight balanced evenly and we stayed supported on the snow surface. Mostly it was crunch, fall, lift, step, repeat. So quickly, I warmed and even felt sore from the unfamiliar leg movement.

Through brambles and branches. Deer tracks. Raccoon tracks with their little fingers. The creek only partially iced over. Tree bark graffiti'd with a teenage hand, "Trippy Squad." Yeah you are.

Up the steep cliff on stairs made of compacted snow. Down the steep slope on a flimsy sled that deposited us in some type of ditch. Kevin became my catcher to ensure that I didn't land in the increasingly puddled ditch nor slam into a tree. I hadn't heard him laugh so hard in a long time. "Why is this so funny?" "You look like you're jumping off a cliff!"

I see my house so near landmarks that usually seem further from one another. I see my house the way I imagine animals would. Deer who go human watching.

Kevin says, "this would be a perfect place for teenagers to get high and have sex." Obviously. But where are they? There's no one out here! Are they too occupied with iPhones? Did we just scare them off? And yet, tracks are easy evidence of presence right now.

We begin to note the train tracks. The ones that created our sledding hill are obviously defunct. We know that neighboring tracks are in use. Kevin has begun charting the route to Atlantic City, the other to Norfolk. And yet, the tracks are not clear. Has the snow chased the trains away too?

Up and down, up and down. I suddenly remember how frequently I sledded as a kid! There was a steep slope that lead into an open, treeless front yard within my childhood cul de sac. We marched over and spent hours walking up the side of the hill (to not mar the sledding slope) and taking turns riding down. I was absolutely fearless then and often overly cautious now. I remembered how easily I could note what snow would give us a perfect ride, what compacted too quickly, what was too icy and slick, and what type of powder gathered and formed moguls on our track. Years of snowless winters buried those memories.

I remembered that slow burn in the thighs of marching and climbing snow. I remembered the proper attire to not pack ice wrists and ankles. I remembered backyard adventures and the stories they inspired.

In the snowy quiet, I heard stories of animals spying on humans. I saw stories of teenagers marking their territory in blue paint and strange names. The stories the trains tell, and their passengers. The stories the plants tell. ("What are these brambles?" I asked Kevin. "Greenbriar." "What do they do?" I asked annoyed at the stickers. "They produce berries the birds like to eat." Oh. Carry on.)

In the adventure, memory, story, the two as one. Step breaks ice, sinks to snow, lifts, and repeats.