“I forgot my boots,” I say to Dan when we’re a mile from home and already running a half hour late for a funeral dinner in the next state.

I remembered everything else: wind pants, gloves, hats, skis, poles, snacks, water, magazines to read while the girls ski…even a check for the Wilderness Wildcats logo gear the team was selling.

It’s 60+ degrees…in January…in the “snow belt” of Pennsylvania, where “lake effect” snow typically buries us in white stuff until May. Sometimes June.

Thanks to the heat wave, the  lodge is going to be a mud hole. I know this because the same thing happened last year. Freak winter warmth = Woodstock-like conditions at the Wilderness Lodge.

I’ve got heels on. Not my most expensive heels, but one of my most comfortable and favorite pairs.

Dan sighs. “Do you want to go back?”

It’s 12:10 and we have to leave the dinner no later than 1:15 p.m. to get the girls to their ski lessons by 2 p.m. We’re already down to having less than an hour at the dinner. If we turn around now, what’s the point in even going?

“No, no…just ….whatever…let’s go.”

We rush to the funeral dinner. We rush through eating. We rush through condolences and small talk. We rush out the door. We rush to the lodge and make it there just in time.

It’s a bog in the parking lot. I step out and sink a good inch into the wet mud.

I tip-toe to the back of the car to help Dan get the girls into their skis and gear. I manage to keep my shoes mostly dry, but end up with big patches of mud on the back of my calves and on my hip from leaning against our filthy car.

As Dan takes the girls down to the lesson area, I try to high step it through the parking lot to the lodge. On my fifth step, I sink down to the top of my right foot.

I turn around and go back to the car. It’s warm enough to sit in the car for 90 minutes and read magazines.  It’s 60 freaking degrees. In January. In the snowbelt of Pennsylvania. And I’m at a ski lodge, trapped in my car by a river of melting snow and 2-inch heels.

Trapped by my stuff. Such a metaphor for my life these days.

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About Just Write
“What ends up revealing itself when free writing is that everything has meaning. That is a magnificent gift of writing. If we write from a free heart-gut place, our souls start speaking.”

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