Every fall, we carry the sled across the land. We follow the trees we have marked on other journeys. We travel from high up across snow to fields and highways through industry: railroads and mines, corn and wheat, shipping.

At the ocean, we take our luggage out of the sled. The water carries it to the middle of the sea. We spend time in the city, seeing a bakery and church before heading back through valleys over great rivers, following markers on trees, the leaves and wind changing along the way while we pull the empty sled behind us.

One fall, we place belongings in the sled and decide to put in only things we have borrowed. We pack dresses and suits, jewelry and toys. We gather fairytales and dictionaries of every language. We take manners we have learned to follow. We take character traits. We carry the borrowed things over dry fields and highways. The waves cart them out to sea.

We visit the city again, this time stopping at the bakery and church before we trek home along our map of trees. We decide to go to the water any season now, not just in fall.

In winter, we go to the beach and take only things we have found. We take shells and rocks and trinkets. We gather animals. We carry people. The land is covered in snow: the fields and roads white and unchanging. Boats near the water have been lifted out and put on the shore, and sheets of ice cover the edge of the sea. We set our found objects on the ice and let them ride out into the cold ocean.

Afterwards, we take warmth in the city in the quietness of its snowy streets. We visit the bakery and church. A constellation moves above us. In the white-blue of the morning, the constellation is gone. We never see the same stars again, even in black sky.

In spring, we decide to take only things we have bought. We take furniture and rugs and lamps. We gather silverware and pots and chocolate and jelly. We cart paintings with picture frames and cars and bicycles. We bring our schooling and travels. Because it is spring, we smell the lemony earth of forests and see mothers with infants in grassy parks. We spot violet and yellow blossoms along highways. We take our sled all the way to the water. We place the heavy things in the lapping surf.

We sit in the sun outside the bakery and church. We are never hot. We are not ever cold. We wear the warm wind like perfect clothing.

In summer, the forests are thick and leafy. The fields have grown into marsh, but we decide to take only things we have lost. We take tickets, a ring, a key. We gather money and buttons. We pack a box of mittens and coats and hats, swimming goggles. We cart relatives. We carry each year of childhood. The sled is empty, but we pull it full of our memories. We send the vacant sled out to sea.

We have nothing to carry things in or pull behind us anymore, so we decide we can go anywhere now. We get on a train. The boxcars roll across the wide prairie and the riverbeds, and when they stop at a highland station, we hike the rest of the way through marked trees to alpine tundra: wildflowers, lichen, and moss.

All we have left are things we have made, plus one thing we have kept from each season. We have kept compassion. We have kept a dog. We have kept a backpack. We have kept a day when we were lovely and young.

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