New Year, New Hope, Same You

Stay loose, like a goose. Stay loose, like a goose,  a little girl tells herself as she zooms on tiny skis down one big mountain.

"Stay loose like a goose!" Her dad reminds her, flying past.

Those were the words he had used to teach her that skiing was a piece of cake. "Especially, for you," he told her every winter morning, "You're a mountain girl."

I had almost forgotten that memory, and many others, of skiing winter after winter in New Mexico and Colorado, where I grew up. I had almost forgotten that I am that mountain girl, shredding it every day, feeling connected to the earth and to myself.

Because I had forgotten, I was very nervous to start skiing again this winter. It had been a few years.

What if I fall in front of Richard and make a huge fool of myself? I had already talked up my skiing skills and passion for so long, he would probably find me utterly ridiculous if I were either too frightened or too out-of-practice to shine.

And then, he got me some cross-country ski boots to use with his late grandmother's classic wooden skis. What a special gift! I guess that means I'm facing my fears, I thought immediately.

I pulled on my boots and clamped in my skis, knowing I could do it but feeling the fear. "Could you please not watch me at first?" I said. "You might mess me up."

Not only had it been a while, but I had never skied on eastern snow, never with un-waxed skis (we hadn't gotten wax yet), and never on a front lawn with just a few snowy inches covering pure, solid ice.

But we didn't have time to go anywhere else. The sun had already set, and there was rain in the forecast. It's not that it was "now or never," but I pretended like it was. You see, I really wanted to go for it.

Zoom! I was off down the hill in our front yard!

It was a little anti-climactic, but at least I didn't fall. I went back up the hill and down again, then I went back behind the house to show off for Richard.

He was chopping wood and didn't seem too impressed, so I returned to the front yard to spell "love" in cursive with my skis. I was determined to wow him.

The cursive word was barely visible by the time he got to see it, but by then, it didn't matter anymore to me whether Richard was impressed. I had impressed myself! I had remembered that connection with childlike exuberance, and I had felt it once again. I remembered a part of myself, and I was glad for it.

Here I am kissing Agnes and Arigna, my new skis. (You can see my guitar, MoJo Hen, and our potted plants in the background.)

This may be a stretch, but I think that's how people are feeling about food right now. Even though it's been a while, even though we are used to going to the grocery store for dinner, we're moving back toward the land, back to our roots. And it feels good. More and more, we're choosing to buy locally, we're growing our own, and we're starting to remember our connection to food.

This Christmas, many of you honored that connection and your lovely friends by donating a tree on their behalf. (Find out who gave, and their honorees, by visiting www.retreeus.org.)

If your donation was enough to put someone's name directly beside one of our trees, your honoree received a unique, hand-made, recycled certificate and envelope like this one:

Just the top of a special gift for one of our supporter's friends.

Of course, the real gift is not the certificate, nor even the honor of having a tree planted in your name. The gift is to know you're a part of this movement--back to that feeling, that truth that we are a part of this planet, that acknowledgment of some forgotten part of yourself.

This New Year, we hope all our local and regional supporters can join us in remembering, and fostering that connection for young people everywhere. On January 31st at Flatbread Pizza, a deliciously conscientious Portland, Maine restaurant, we'll celebrate with some really good food. For every pizza sold, Flatbread Pizza will donate $3.50 to ReTreeUS.

Working on the hand-painted banner to be hung at Flatbread.

Posing by the poster I made to help us advertise the event.

So join us. It doesn't have to hurt, and you probably won't fall down. Because organic, locally-produced food is deeply ingrained in each of us.

Come back to your roots, with ReTreeUS.