Night ski

Jon and I have had the boys take cross-country ski lessons for a quite a few years now. They seem to tolerate them- and they actually enjoy and look forward to our annual ski weekend with friends- but that has always been more about the friends, less about the skiing. But something may be changing here. They sure don't like the friends any less- they are in high excitement mode for the upcoming adventure to Telemark and the games they will play- but they are getting much more excited about skiing as well. This year they are picking up some real new skills at lessons and the confidence is going up. This week, Eli came home from school and asked if we could go skiing. That night. So after a quick dinner the family headed out to Como in the dark. We had a lovely ski in the dim moonlight- with 100 of our fellow St. Paulites. Turns out that Tuesday evenings are 'Stride and Glide' adult lessons and they were out in force. But Como can accomodate tons of skiers- it is BusyTown after all. It was delightful to be plodding along with our little group and then to be surpassed by 15 silent skaters-- whooshing out the darkness and then disappearing again into the night. There is something quite beautiful about a group of graceful skate skiers skiiing along in unison. And the darkness enhanced that. Occasionally in the distance you could see a skier with a headlamp on- the arc of light moving swiftly over the snow, the skier invisible, but his/her power and grace evident in the gentle sway of the oncoming light. All in all it was a magical outing.