Winter Words

 

 

January 10, 2022

 

Greetings from the open places,

 It’s winter here, which means something different, perhaps, where you are.  Where I live, the world freezes in various forms, sometimes on the ground, or in the water, and often in the air.

Nature paints everything in cold.  Ice on the eves, snow lining the branches, frost on the glass, small creeks heal over in crystal scars.

 I’ve watched this happen for countless winters, and still I can be surprised.  Usually while I am in the middle of resenting the season’s presence.

 Yesterday morning I left home hours before the sun came up, intent on running a dozen miles.  On top of the layers of things I thought necessary to keep unfrozen things unfrozen, I wore a headlamp that poured a circle of light onto the places in front of me.

 There is a feeling you probably know, when life suspends all of what you thought you should be thinking, and gives you something else.  Usually something better.  For me, a long run invites this to happen and I am rarely disappointed.

 I crunched along the old snow until and then turned into the wind, felt it’s hand against my chest.  We didn’t need to be introduced, we are old friends, although we rarely agree.  I could feel the force explore me, seeking open places to sear with cold.

 I lowered my head against the force and drove into it, trying to be aerodynamic, a comical idea which inspired the wind to laugh in gusts.  I know better, and I relented, and Nature gave me a gift, not as consolation, but to show me it could.

 The wind scoured the world and gathered snow in its grip.  It sliced down the road toward me and created art in the air captured by my light.  Snow was coming at me like galaxies of stars, and I felt like an astronaut hurtling through the universes. 

 I let go of my struggle against the headwind, and simply watched the snow stream toward me.  It was hypnotic;  I lost track of time, and for a few miles, forgot the few worries that I left the house with.

 After a few miles I turned north, and the wind created new art.  Now the snow formed nearly solid lines of grey in the light in front of me.  If I’d had a snow pencil, I could have written a note to the Nature there, sent it on the wind.

 In the dim light I could make out the shapes of animals racing across the snow, their dark silhouettes bold against the crepe of winter.  Thudding across the snow and then up onto the road, their hooves clattering on the icy pavement, and in a few bounds, they were flying across the snow in the fields beyond.  I slowed long enough to shine my lamp in their direction.  They were nearly invisible except for the glowing green eyes, floating in the dark.

 Miles passed and I ran west again.  The wind bullied the temperatures down.  Out here the farms push back the trees so the wind can dance, wild and unfettered.  It howls across the open places, scours the narrow ribbons of road, seethes between the low shrubs, the few thickets of oaks.

 I ran past bare fields coated with snow, a few houses dotted the road, each with a stand of trees to divert whatever the seasons brought.  I could feel patches of ice form on the clear pavement, little surprises to keep me on my toes, or send me on my back.  I came to the road where I would turn east, already eager to feel the wind behind me, when it would be an ally again.

 As I ran onto the crossroad, I lost touch with the earth.  In the moment I thought: “This is impossible.”  Which it was not.  The road was coated in black ice, a nearly perfect frictionless surface.  My momentum carried me across the two lanes, somehow I was able to stay on my feet, and I slid sideways over the road and into the snowy ditch on the other side.

 I laughed out loud, amazed that I hadn’t fallen.  I ran again, stumbling along in the snow, occasionally testing the pavement, still slick with invisible ice.  I gave up on thoughts of pace or training, and simply ran, clumsy and awkward on the edge of the road.  I turned again, tiptoeing across the slick road, now back onto hardpacked snow, glazed with ice.  There was almost nowhere to run without slipping.

 I felt the frustration build, knowing it was foolish to let it take hold and still fought to keep control where it didn’t belong to me. 

 I finally stopped, breathless, and struggled to keep my feet under me.  I was in the lee of a copse of pines, and the wind went elsewhere to play.  I looked up into the light from my lamp, watched the mist from my breath writhing in the air, like another living thing, but part of me.

 I said words into the dark air, watched them form into calligraphy in the beam of light.  The letters swirled in white form, mingling with the others, then becoming new things.  The cloud formed a prayer of sorts, an exhalation of fear and worry.  I said the words that matter most, and sent them into the world.

  

Hope this finds you open,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 David Smith