Total Immersion

Here we go, folks. It's a warm one this week, after gaining twenty degrees and shedding the golf outfit I wore for Halloween recently, it's time to attack a few projects. Not that we are ever completely our actions, but you know sometimes you have to work from the Outside In. So while rearranging some rooms of the house, digging all those pushpins and dust bunnies from their corner homes, while chopping wood and stacking 'em in the shed while Trout watches curled up in camp chair on front porch, while learning once more the regular feel of plastic keyboard under fingertips, the world slowly opens up.

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Last night. 11.05.09. Carter Lake Trail.

The mist had fallen in quickly. Where LV Ray had just been was now a wall of cloud. Ankle deep and crusty, the wet powder grabbed onto my boots with each footstep. Headlamp, strapped onto ball cap, was still turned off. Trout was out hustling through alders, chasing scents and readjusting his legs to the pounce of the snow. My plan to make it to Carter Lake was coming to a close, and also coming to a re-evaluation: my pant legs were cold and wet enough to be uncomfortable, the crystals that had made it to the back of my legs not melting. Trout wasn't coming back any time soon, and I didn't feel like disturbing the silence with my cry into the night.

I closed my eyes and pointed my face skyward, attempting to straighten out and treat the reoccurring pain that has invaded my neck muscles in the last two weeks. Tilting my head now to the left shoulder, I was shocked with how much time it took my neck to reach full extension. I then faced the snow at my feet, a position making it easy to relax and let my arms hang like an orangutan's. Finally I rotated my heavy head over to my right shoulder, a move just as creaky as the other side's. Rolling my shoulders towards the front, I breathed deeply while listening to little critters bounce around off trail. I extended my arms and started swinging them back and forth, still focusing on my breathing.

The fog continued its mystical roll across the tops of the alders, hiding the mountains from view. Looking back towards the trail I had walked up to get here, towards the creeks starting to ice over, the dirt and leaves now saying their goodbyes to fresh air before being blanketed for months, I imagined a figure emerging out of the mist. For a second, I thought I saw one, and I believe I wasn't alone. Fear bubbled up my spine into my consciousness and I called for Trout, glad when I saw his eyes reflected in my headlamp light.

Up above the highway noise, this was a world unlike any I had been in all day. Unlike any I had been in since the snow and darkness melted away from us this past Spring. I didn't have to wait for the white stuff to hit down at my house before Trout and I could get back into it once more.

Apparently I wasn't ready for total immersion. But as these chores and routines continue to shape the world around me, as the growing snow pack continues reflecting light, rivers of spirits past, present and future are making themselves known. Bon Hiver!