The Ageless Bliss of Defying Gravity

They both reluctantly opened the car door and stepped outside into the warm winter sun on the cold day. While the weather for February was not frigid, it was still cold enough that she could see his long exhales plume and evaporate and hear his boots crunch the new snow covering the parking lot.

He grabbed her padded nylon-covered hand as they headed to the entrance.   She smiled at his gesture believing she could feel his youthful enthusiasm rising as he grasped her fingers tighter.

It was two weeks ago that they decided they were bored. With each other. With family. With life. Bored with being forced out the past and forced into technology. Bored with living in the delineated lines of acceptance, created years ago as a trail marker and now built of concrete. It was Bill who had first recognized his own entrapment.

“Bertie, I don’t want to die an old man whose obituary will read only of family matters and accomplishments of fifteen years ago,” he remarked during their standard morning cup of coffee and pastry.  “I want us to do something new now so we can reset our damn legacy that we somehow stopped creating.”

Bill retired early from his management job with a food manufacturer. Retired was the word Bill used to describe what happened to others even though that was not exactly the truth. It was easier than coming to terms with his company finding a younger, brighter version of him willing to work for less with the promise of advancement and perks the other generations needed to justify success. Bill carried boxes of his awards and recognitions out to the car only to stop by the dumpster and pitch them before leaving the parking lot. The plastic and metal meant nothing without a vision of a bigger him behind it.

“We need to have fun again Beatrice.”

“Who the hell is Beatrice?” Bertie thought. She paused to reconcile Bill’s comment. She could not remember the last time he had used her real name. Whatever crisis of longevity he was facing this time, she knew it was serious. 

He had worked through the embarrassment of the layoff, the point when the children only wanted him to come over to fix things beyond their skills or checkbooks, and the day he swallowed his first baby aspirin as an adult. One time he bought a car to get over his anguish. Another time he golfed thirty-six holes a day for ten days. This time he said her real name. Whatever he was feeling resonated deeper, closer to his soul than his other self-reckonings. 

They stood in line under the arrow. Bill dropped Bertie’s hand to slip his wallet out of his back pocket. He looked at the admission fee sign to confirm what package they wanted.

“Two hours, right?” he asked.

Bertie nodded in agreement. She wasn’t sure her body could handle two hours, but that was the shortest duration they could purchase.

When they did this years ago, they brought supplies from their garage and began feeling the rush of excitement after arriving. Here they joined with others to pick up their gear.

Bertie’s teeth chattered. She could not tell if it was from fear or cold or both.

“Are you ready?” Bill’s warm smiled reassured her most of her fears were unfounded. She knew her body had not contorted the way it would need to today in years and hoped she could still walk tomorrow.

They smelled rubber and sweat. The freezing temperatures did not cool the frenzied workers behind the counter. The mix of sun, tolerable cold, and snow seemed to bring out the adventurer in everyone.

The attendant asked Bill if he wanted a one person or two person.

“A two person,” Bill calmly responded even though he was not sure of what he had accepted.

When as a couple they decided to go sledding, they expected a small hill and rows of wooden sleds with waxed metal gliders that provided speed and control. A lever at the front would allow them to direct its nose away from others.

The worker lifted what looked like a swimming pool floatation device over his head and placed it on the ground in front of Bill.

“The doubles can go down lanes one, two and four. The other lanes are for singles only.” Bill looked at Bertie hoping she was translating the worker’s words into understandable instructions.

“You can walk up the hill or use the carpet. And don’t by any means, start turned backwards. We run a safe operation here.”

“Oh, and have fun.”

Bill and Bertie looked at each other with blank stares.

“We’ll watch others first,” Bill suggested. He lifted the tube in front of him and followed the markings to “The Basin”

With the tube covering his face, Bill nearly ran over a young boy. Bertie motioned to him to hold the tube down by his side and walked over to grab the back handle.

“This looks like this is a two-person job,” she said motioning Bill’s awareness to a couple who was maneuvering the tube with the experience of repeat riders.

Bill and Bertie both knew things had changed. They had come to the hill looking for reminders of their youth as they neared retirement age. A neighbor close to their age had told them about the hill and warned them not to be intimidated.

“It doesn’t matter how you have fun once you get there. Let the kids move fast or the lovers smooch,” he had shared with them. “Your actions may need to be more deliberate, but I know you will both enjoy the ride and time together.”

“If I don’t kill myself if the process,” Bill mumbled to himself.

After several strides in the basin, Bill and Bertie developed a rhythm of steps and shifts to get them from the ticket booth to the bottom of the hill. They had gotten further than either of them had thought.

They had a choice to make. Balance themselves and the tube on the carpet to rise to the top or walk themselves and the tube up the incline. Both options had risks to not only their body, but also to their aging pride.

They stood for a minute looking at each other, believing their tubing adventure was over. If nothing else, they could find a table and watch the other tubers sleekly slide over the smooth winter surface. The silence between them spoke louder than words they could have said. They were scared.

The “what if’s” momentarily set in.

“What if we fall Bill?”

“What if I aggravate my back? Bertie, I can’t go through physical therapy again.”

Shyly Bertie chimed in with subtle words from so deep within her that she almost could not say them, “What if we don’t do this today? What will we say we can’t do tomorrow?”

They both knew their limitations had grown as they aged and they needed to be careful, but would the tangling of aging stop them every time? Bill needed an accomplishment, a new notch on his life’s purpose pole.

Bill knew if he led, Bertie would follow. She had followed him down the path of his career and up the road of parenting and still carved out her own self image as a mother, educator, and community leader with her internal grit. Just like Bill knew she would follow, he also knew that she spoke strong words of encouragement and determination when he needed them.

“Being fired is a good reason to start looking for a new job.”

“You have it in you to beat the addiction.”

Bill lifted his foot and planted it one step closer to the magic carpet. The snow wrapped around his leather boot as an embrace with the sound of its compacting of sole a reminder that the other foot had to follow. He aligned the second foot with the first.

Bertie watched the beautiful awkwardness of his stance. He was ready for the ascent. And so was she.

They each took small confident steps using the tube as a wobbly support providing a barrier between them and the ground. Both had their sights on the lift.

With the moving carpet in front of them, Bill orchestrated the transition from personal energy fueling their movement to electricity propelling them upward. Neither wobbled nor fell as they released their control to the platform. The short ride to the top seemed like one long inhale.

The moving path ended without little warning leaving Bill to release the tube as to not stumble over a toddler in search of his missing parent. Bertie watched what seemed to be individual frames of a movie appear less than two feet in front of her. To avoid toppling over Bill, she leaned to the side with the tube and released her footing. She slid six feet away from the pileup, her body laying facedown parallel with the tube.

Bill rushed to her, afraid she might have hit her head and face on the ground. He rolled her over ready for blood and her reassurance that she would still be fine to go forward or paralyzed in fear that she had broken a bone or fractured her pride. Instead, she smiled and giggled like a child on a sugar high when laughing roused not from a particular joke, but from a belly content with a child’s forbidden treasure.

“We came up,” she said brushing the off the snow mane created around her hood. “And now we must go down.” She transitioned her body to the tube’s front, sat in its indentation, and grabbed the plastic handles.

“Will you do the honors of guiding us to a lane?”

Bill pushed the double dish to gate one and waited for instructions from the gatekeeper.

Legs up. No twisting. Do not stand up until the tube passes the blue line in the basin.

Bill positioned himself in his confines and Bertie reached back to touch his hand before she mounted hers in death grips.

“And have fun kids.” The gatekeeper gave them a gentle push to get them started.

And then gravity intervened and the “what if’s” disappeared.

The previous runs had glazed snow so all they had to do was embrace earth’s pull. Bertie happily screamed through the air rushes. Her own exhilaration only surpassed by her husband’s yell from a hidden boyhood place still remaining in his heart.

“Yahoo!”

Their sled entered the basin an began to slow down. They both watched the ground as the rubber easily glided past the blue line. Neither wanted to get up. They had recreated time- time that they did not think they had or that they could find. Sitting there, they were both again the kids in the stories they shared about the biggest hill or the deepest snow. Or the time that . . .

They had donated the metal and wooden sled and sleek saucers years ago when they thought everyone had grown up, matured, found other pleasures in their lives more attractive the simpleness of snow and a hill.

The attendant asked them if they needed help out of their tube.

“We have to keep the lanes clear for others.”

They rose synchronously and moved out of the restricted area to bask further in their moment of youth.

Bertie could feel a dull ache in her hand and her thigh muscle tighten.

“I can be done if you are Bertie.”

She thought about her own little aches and wondered if Bill was feeling them too. She did not want to ask. The swoosh down the hill too precious to their psyche. She knew she needed another run.

“If you are up for it, I would like to do it one more time,” Bertie told Bill, looping her arms around his neck.

“You know we may pay for this when we try to get out of bed tomorrow.”

Bertie coyly replied, “Since when did the fear of a little soreness stop us in the past?” Her hand gently rubbing the small of his back and grazing his behind.

His eyes brightened and looked back up the hill.

“I forgot what it is like not to argue with gravity.”