Snowrunner

December 12, 2016

Greetings from the white,

“Adventure is not outside man; it is within.”  George Eliot

It is dark, still almost an hour before dawn.  If not for the snow it would be darker.  I look down at where the road should be and see undisturbed white.   No one has been out ahead of me.  The powder is a few inches deep, just the right consistency to make the little squeaking noise as I run through it.  It is one of those innocent moments, starting to run down my street, when I could be fooled into thinking this will be an ordinary run.

I am in a cocoon of light.  Strapped to each hand are lamps that put out a bright spot in front of me.  I can see well enough without them, but want to be seen even more, on the off chance that anyone else is out in this mess.

I tramp through the snow, already mentally adjusting to how much time this twelve miles will take.  The hills feel different; everything is taking just a little more effort, adjusting, fighting for traction and balance.  At home are a pair of YakTrax I should have worn. 

I run by a house where a man is standing at the end of his driveway with a shovel.  He hasn’t begun yet, still formulating the strategy.   I can’t see his face but I know what he is probably thinking: do I risk a heart attack for this?  I say good morning to him and scare the profanity out of him.

I trudge on.  I am lifting a small amount of snow with every step.  The storm mocks me, laughs at my effort and fills in my tracks.  The wind puts a hand on my chest to test my balance in the slippery meringue.  A few miles pass, and aside from the wind, everything seems muted.

The world is a cloud of snow around me, but I see something moving ahead of me.  It is a main road, a mile away, and there is something huge moving along in the snowy dark.  It is a little unsettling until I realize it is a road plow.  It is like some enormous alien beast, brilliant lights shining from under it.  A green laser slices through the snow, putting a bead along the edge of the road for the driver to follow.  The plow devours the snow, blasting it into plumes, creating snowsurf crashing on my horizon.

I cross the road into farmland. It is wide open here and the wind is greedy, taking full advantage to run full out on the flats.  The snow is horizontal, stinging my eyes.  I am coughing, inhaling the snow, thinking that I am too cold and too far from home.

Most of my landmarks are invisible, or disguised in a cloak of white.  I know from the farmhouses about where I am.  And then the White Dog appears; it’s as if he is born out of the snow.  His voice sounds different, flat and echoless. He is lumbering through the snow, bounding toward the road.  I wonder for the hundredth time if this will be the day he comes out into the road to test my bravery.  It’s not.

Now the last of the trees are gone and the snow is slashing at my skin, little bee stings, death by a thousand flakes.  I run under a high tension power line.  It sounds like water rushing above me, as if hidden somewhere in the white above me there are rivers suspended by the wind.      

At six miles I turn into the wind and realize that what I was running in before was not cold.  This is cold.  I hold my hands up to protect my face.  I can read the writing on the inside of my knuckle-lights.  I have this strange sensation of sanctuary, grateful for my cupped hands.  At home there is a balaclava I should have worn.    I wonder for the hundredth time if I am using the wrong name for the Greek pastry. 

 My lips are too numb to spit.  The lights on my hands have gone out, clearly not designed to work in these temperatures.  The snow is piling up on my eyebrows, layers of ice holding the rim of my hat in place against my forehead.  My eyelashes are frosted with snow and I feel like I’m looking out through lace curtains.

I can feel the ice caking in my beard.  I swipe the icicles off every so often, and then realize it is actually protecting me from the wind.  I remember, years ago, after a difficult run in a rainstorm, someone said, ‘It will make you tougher.’  I formulate a mantra:  ‘This is hard but I am harder.  This is tough but I am tougher.’  After a while I realize I am saying it out loud.

Turning back east I feel the wind cutting through three layers of high tech winter gear.  At home is a jacket I should have worn.   It is light now, somewhere beyond the grey the sun has arrived.  I come to a railroad crossing where the road has been scraped and salted for maybe twenty feet.  The dry patch feels foreign and awkward and I am almost thrown off balance.

In the last few miles the wind is broken by lines of trees, and then houses, and more trees.  The snow is more casual, meandering down to layer in the few tire tracks carved here.  I relax with the snow, throttle back my grind.  I can feel the ice built up on my forehead, on my face.  I know I am smiling, but I can’t feel that sensation, just the frozen mask tugging at my skin.

Adventures are not packaged up in a neat fashion and presented to us.  They are messy and chaotic and painful and loud and almost always inconvenient.   How we embrace them is sometimes the difference between what threatens to defeat us and what makes us stronger.

Hope this finds you tougher,

David

Copyright © 2016 David Smith