It's the serenity that I need the most.
Saturday, March 24th was the day that the entire ski team had been working towards. The Bromont party. The night that the ski hill stays open all night, the night that we load up at the liquor store in the morning and put St-Patty's day to shame.
The day that we ski until we drop, we skip the race for the kids and just show off our stuff on the slopes.
Granted, there was too much snow (c'est tu possible?!) and every diamond run was a bump run, but somehow I survived that too, with a few more tumbles than customary.
And we skied, and we fried in the sun, and ate and drank and smoked and went out for dinner, all thirty of us, and then retired to the apres ski bar where half the floor had been converted to a sandbox, with palm trees everywhere and a surprisingly good salsa band playing.
The guy who organizes hockey nights at work was there, and taught me how to add the extra sensuous wiggle to my step and taught me the pause-two-three-four-pause rythm of the cha-cha, salsa, and showed me how to keep up with the thundering rythm of a meringue.
And so aching thighs and beautiful nineteen year old ski team boys and I danced late into the night, drunk and stoned and utterly happy with each other, and I may have kissed the wrong David as I was leaving, but it was a good goodbye kiss, a good "see you next year" kind of kiss.
Maybe we'll keep in touch until then, you never know, but somehow the rest of my life doesn't have all that much room for little boys, but hey...
...and we juggled and Ludovic turned out to be quite the three-ball maestro, and my crystal ball was flying through the motions, smooth as a stoned dancer can be.
And we got home very, very late last night, singing at the tops of our lungs, all the songs that we could remember the words to, and I taught the kids a few of our old drinking songs from Bretagne, and we pelted out lines about little girls and old priests and going off to war for king Louis, and our hearts were in every off-key note.
I woke up this morning, tired, sore, warm, to the insistent ring of the telephone.
And that's where the serenity comes in. Last night was one of the wildest nights this year, but this morning began with Maria's comforting lilt, talk of things that mean something more to me than the adrenaline in my veins, and all of a sudden my love for being awake went beyond the sheer thrill of movement.
Princess, you add something to my life that ski teams, and wild parties, and marathon sex never will.
And right now, I am preparing to wash dishes, vacuum, put things away, but I am doing it happily.
It is Sunday afternoon, the sun is flooding my appartment with the sort of light that only existed from reflection off the snow all winter, I am swathed in my silk kimono and the cranes stitched into the material are in full flight, mirroring the serene beating of a full heart.