The Feel.

I try to capture the feel of what it’s like to own this place.

As the snow starts to drop slowly I find myself drawn outside.  As the flakes grow stronger and bigger it becomes an inescapable urge.

I often walk outside in whatever I have on.  Jeans and house slippers,  pajama pants and a coat,  if I’m lucky I’m wearing my boots.  I’ve walked out in my socks before only to realize it when my foot crosses a rough stone or branch.

As I walk outside tonight with a crisp class of white wine in my hand I am struck by just how alone I am.  Divinely alone.

The only tracks in the snow I see are my own.

I look around observing the cabin and listening to the endless rush of the waterfall.  It’s majestic in it’s crescendo.  It feels never ending and permanent as few things are in life.  It calms me.

I walk towards the lake as I am also drawn there.  I slip along my favorite path in the snow, hearing the slow,  silent,  hiss of my boots compressing it.

Often as I arrive at the lake I look across to the bridge and see people there looking back at me.  I wonder what they are thinking as they see a girl across the lake in a red hat looking back at them.

I wonder if they wonder what I’m doing out there,  clutching the stem of my glass in my chilled fingers, but loving the delicious feel of the chill of the glass, against the chill of the wine on my lips,  against the chill of the air,  and the moist snow just touching my braid as it escapes out of my hat.

I walk deeper into the forest along the lake path.   I glance up the trunk of a lonely old gnarled pine.  As I’m looking up the snow flakes are hitting my face, touching my eyes, and enveloping me in a veil of white softness.  As my gaze becomes locked in an embrace with the upper reaches of the tree I observe all the shades of the trunk and the crinkled branches like an old man’s face that has spent a lifetime on the sea.

The sea of the forest.

I think about religion.

I was raised catholic but nothing has touched me as deeply as moments like this.

Moments where you aren’t listening to what you should believe,  moments where you just believe.

Tears start to glisten in my eyes as I think about the universe and how we are graced with moments like this.  I think about my grandfather and the way his blue eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled and how much I miss him,  I think about my family,  my boyfriend,  my friends,  how lucky I am to have people who care about me, my nieces and the joy I have every time I see them grow taller,  stronger, more excited about what life is bringing.  And I think about this cabin.  How every moment I’ve spent here has brought me closer to the universe and how the universe speaks to me through the trees.  Is this religion?   The religion of the forest?   It could be.

As I walk down to my favorite log jutting out into the lake and the snow starts falling more rapidly I see a male and female mallard both flying from opposite directions through the snow.  They land in unison on the glassy lake and immediately swim towards each other , only to join together in a perfectly choreographed pace.  Side by side.

As humans we can only strive to be as graceful in life as two mallards swimming side by side on a snowy lake in the mountains.