Motor Skills

It was winter time at my family’s cabin in Lake Tahoe, California. The painted red wood siding and evergreen metal roof were barely visible through the freshly dropped snow. Our quaint little cabin was nestled at the bottom of a mountain on the North Shore, and had been an annual family gathering location since its purchase by my mother’s parents in 1963. While we spend every summer and almost all summer in Lake Tahoe, we have spent a few memorable holidays in this cabin, trying to stay warm by the original wood stove built with the house in 1953.

The most memorable of times at this cabin have been with my forever best friend, Sarah Caporusso, who was and still is invited every year up to the cabin. Sarah and I have grown up together since the age of one, and have shared infinite experiences with one another. My earliest of memories was during an especially snowy winter at the cabin. We could not have been any older than four, yet my mother decided she would strap us into ice skates regardless of our motor skill level. At the top of Squaw Valley, in a rink that seemed absolutely massive back then at a height of three feet, Sarah and I clutched to one another for an hour. When one of us fell on the slippery ice, sure enough the other followed closely behind.

By the end of the day, our hands were sore and our lips chapped. Even though I was so young and inexperienced in life, I somehow knew this was a friendship that would last forever. Childhood friendships are so important, and it is amazing when you can keep one for more almost twenty years. This is the earliest memory I have of Sarah and I, skating and tumbling together. A single snowy memory gave way to hundreds of more memories.