Sledding

Among the dreary television ads aimed at the elderly, mostly dominated by pills and balms and an organ recital of maladies, there sometimes comes a little miracle.

For those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to see it, the ad that brings happy tears to my eyes whenever I see it, begins with three elderly women sitting on a park bench in the snow, humorless and benign as they watch a sea of children zipping and whooshing down a snowy hill on plastic sleds.

Then, one of the old gals gets a twinkle. She returns the next day with a box containing bum cushions, perfectly designed to cradle aging bones. Slowly, the trio comes to life. In the final scene, the ladies are seen at the top of the hill, pushing off to sail into childhood again, squealing all the way.

I would like to thank the person who made the ad. I would like to hug and kiss them. Without a single word of dialogue this small film, masquerading as a television ad, is as rich and spare and true as a poem.

I am grateful each time it arrives on the screen to remind we who have been benched, to snap out of our oldrums and remember that laughter is as essential as breath.

Instead of harumphing when the weathergal predicts snow, put on your long johns and join in. Make a snow angel or a snow person. Pour yourself a cup of hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream and take in the indescribable beauty of fresh snow.

Or, if you aren’t lucky enough to live in a snowy place, lay down in cool grass and search for shapes in the clouds. Blow a dandelion and drink from the hose. If something makes you laugh, buy it. Scrawl moustaches on politicians and influencers and supreme court justices. Every once and awhile, tell someone to fuck off.

In the words of Morgan Freeman, “It’s time to get back to livin’!”

Photo by Annie Griffiths