OUR FIRST EXPERIENCE

Dear Spike:

We took a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon this afternoon. The canyon is beautiful at any time of year, but especially during this time, when the leaves are changing and the snow has frosted the trees.

About halfway up to the ski resorts, we bundled you up in the snowbear suit that you got from your friend Zoe and jumped out of the car to take a walk through a picnic area, next to a stream. Your mother and I have always enjoyed taking short daytrips, like this, but it has never been so fun as it was today with you. You marveled at the leaves, at the cold running water and at the snow (which fell from the branches above onto your face a couple of times) and as you did, we marveled at you.

When our friend Chunn came over for dinner, last week, we stumbled into an interesting discussion about what a shame it is that most of us don’t remember our first experience with snow. So too with so many of life’s other first pleasures — hugs from our grandparents, the changing colors of fall, the taste of our favorite fruits and vegetables.

Chunn — whose parents raised the first Buddhist temple in California’s Fresno Valley after immigrating here from Cambodia — thought about this for a moment and then said: “It would be good, then, if just we thought of everything as a first.”

Indeed.

Love,
dad