No matter how much I tilted my head or covered my face, the wind still kept throwing the whiteness at me. Bits of frozen snow and ice pelted my exposed face and burned my eyes. Finally realizing that my sister was right, I subtly tried to put my goggles back on. My sister sat next to me as we hung miles above the air on a skimpy ski lift. Before we got on, she had already made sure that she had everything.

Blue and yellow beanie on her head. Check.

Gloves on each hand, holding ski poles. Check.

Ski goggles on her face. Check.

I, on the other hand, had no poles, just a pair of wet gloves and pink beanie with a pompom on top. Before we got on, I had been playing with the snow and trying to make a snow ball. My eyebrows were furrowed at the intensity of scooping more snow off the ground and mashing it into my little ball of pride. At the last minute, I held it gently to me as I got on. Of course, by now, it had already melted into a puddle on my lap. I squiggled around and adjusted my pink and black puffy jacket, which was wrapped tight around me, when all of a sudden, I felt something hit my knee and drop down. My eyes stung again. The whiteness swirled around me, and I couldn’t see my glove when I put it in front of me. I held on to the bar on the ski lift, and tried to distinguish top from bottom. I wanted to scream for the lift to stop, but the dark green snow covered pine trees didn’t cease to move next to us. That was when I realized that my goggles had dropped. By the time my sister saw what had happened, the whiteness around us had already covered all evidence of the incident. My sister’s eyebrows curled in and she took off her goggles, rolling her eyes.

“Here!” Her arm flung the goggles at me, and her glare sat me up. She sighed in an exasperated voice and shook her head, as if saying, What am I going to do with her? For the rest of the way, she buried her face in her blue and white hood while the snow kept falling, while I stiffly sat next to her, afraid to move. I would occasionally glance swiftly at her, but I didn’t want to upset her more. By the time we got to the station, the snow had slowed and the wind had died down. I saw spots of yellow and red moving down the mountain. Other skiers. The tips of the trees and the brown tree trunks under the leaves were green and brown. Not everything was white anymore. I could clearly see the grey fences and lost ski poles. The sky was finally clear again. In the end the goggles were unnecessary, but I put them on anyway. I wore them all the way down the mountain.