Stuck On a Hill

Our house has the perfect sledding hill smack dab in front. Yesterday Phoenix and I spent a good space of time going up and down until I tired of the up and down and went to sit on a sunlit expanse of land cross legged and with palms open to absorb the winter light and clear my mind like the bare branches of trees and the all-blue sky. It was perfectly still and quiet except for the swooshing of the sled and the little feet trudging through snow. And then after one down hill ride she lay sprawled atop the sled and hollered "Mom, I'm stuck." I answered "no you're not, you just haven't tried to get up." And so it was, she rolled to the side and got right up and continued on climbing and sledding, up and down while I kept on breathing, in and out. It struck me then how that's what it means to be stuck--in our thoughts, in a rut, in our habits--it is all a matter of not moving and not even trying to move. We get stuck because it is easy, when really all we have to do is choose to get up--inch by inch or in long leaping measures, it doesn't matter. It only matters that we give ourselves that nudge, that we try.