A Day Well Spent

     There is one more day in January and today feels ever so much like a Sunday than the sunny Monday that it is.  Yesterday has been one of my best Granada days. I spent it skiing with friends Maria, Carlos, and Jose.  Maria is the sister of Antonio, whom I nannied for over the summer, so I feel already close to her and her family.
     The snow was perfect, light white fluffy powder which sent me softly down the slopes.  The sun came out and warmed our backs while the wind chapped our faces.  I skied well and remembered the days growing up at Mount Rose--my young fun parents, the days in college ditching out on class, drinking bottled beer in the lodge with boys I could eventually fall for.  There isn't really a much better way to spend the day, is there?  Outdoors and active, with people you love, you enjoy, you laugh with. Days like yesterday make it worth it.  Work hard to play hard.  Ignoring the ego's lazy pleas:  it's cold! it's expensive! this jacket's not warm enough! You can't put a price on a day well spent, the rush of speeding down the mountain, singing and shouting, revving your own engine, all by yourself.  The moments descending exist for you, your world, your own rhythm, moments you need not share with anyone, for you will ride back to the top accompanied, laughing, talking-- agreeing that the weather has been agreeable.
     Ten thousand feet above the world, where trees don't grow. A distant view of Morocco, the strait that leads there, another land to explore.


     But for now it's a cold beer in the sun, a foil wrapped sandwich, chapstick and sunscreen, and the clear reflecting hunger for more. More up, more down, more days well spent.