A few days ago, my five year old daughter told me that she was snowboarding at school with her friend I. I told her that was neat. I know that she and her friends take their sleds (called toboggans in Canada, I learned the hard way*) up a small hill, built by a parent equipped with a light-duty snow pusher, and then slide down. How would she possibly know about snowboarding, an exercise in craziness where adults slide down hills standing up?
Apparently, I. was shown how by a friend of hers how to snowboard on kids’ toboggans and then I. showed my daughter how to do it. Today, at a hill near her future school, Maeve stood up on her plastic purple toboggan, put her feet perpendicular to the path, shuffled herself forward, grabbed the rope at the front and slid down the hill, balancing herself all the way until the end when she fell and, on cue, laughed! I literally could not believe me eyes. She was snowboarding, comfortably, balanced on her tobaggan, straight down the hill. No fear. One year ago, this was not possible. Six months ago, this was not possible. It was beautiful.
* A few years ago, upon my initial intro to Canadian culture with my friend M.M., I was shown a tobaggan chute in a Winnipeg park where every kid in the area tobaggans. I was amazed because, in the States, a tobaggan chute is generally the property of competitive bobsledders, who speed down hills at 75 miles per hour without brakes on their sleds. In my naivite, I asked M.M. “Have you ever tobogganed?”