Jumping Off Roofs


March 6, 2013

This small snow storm we’re experiencing in my neck of the woods today has me thinking back to a bigger one we had in Pennsylvania when I was but a child. What a great storm! Not only big enough to get you out of school, but this weather system did us the favor of dropping snowflake upon snowflake until they’d piled up about 3 or so feet high. For a lively 10-year-old with his brothers who were probably about 8 and 3, this was truly a winter wonderland! But my mother had no clue what that would mean…

Jumping

We’d been left outside to play in the snow while my mom did what she needed to inside. It was probably a mix of doing laundry and baking cookies. Whatever exactly it was, it was interrupted by a phone call. She walked over and answered only to find it was actually one of our neighbors calling. “Hmm, well that’s strange.” The call was simple really. The neighbor just wanted to know if she was aware that…

…her sons were climbing a ladder onto the roof and then jumping off into the snow!

For the record, NO, she did not know that was what she’d left us to do. But come on! The ladder had been left by my dad who had shoveled the snow off the roof so it didn’t cause the roof to collapse. He’d left the ladder there. We’re boys. Young boys. This just had to happen!

It didn’t matter that it was a bit risky. It was an adventure to be had. An experience to be reveled. One that we haven’t soon forgotten. Because life is meant to be experienced in new and exhilarating ways.

I now sometimes look at myself and other adults with the eyes of Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes and wonder where our sense of wonder has gone. How have some of us gotten so busy doing life that we’ve slowly moved away from truly living it? How have we allowed reason to so easily conquer our childlike sense of adventure?

And I think it’s time we slowed down to stare in wonder at the snow as it gracefully makes its way from heaven to earth. I think it’s time we put aside the work for a minute to laugh and play a game with our family or friends. I think it’s time we climbed on a roof and jumped off. But only if there’s enough snow!! And since most of us won’t be getting that with this storm, then that particular adventure may have to wait. But today is a good day for you to write your own new one. So go out and live!