Magic
So this happened to me when I was home and it has been haunting me ever since.
***
Sometimes when it snows hard enough my family can cross country ski out our front door. There is less than a mile between my parents house and path along the creek that is great for mountain biking/ dog walking/ assorted outdoor activities. All that lies between are gravely roads. And when it snows hard enough the ski-destroying gravel is covered.
Which happened this winter.
The house I grew up in (which I am struggling to call “my parents house” as opposed to “home” in some effort to force myself to at least verbally leave Montana behind) is on the outskirts of town. I think you could call it a suburb except suburbs don’t really exist in Montana. Borderline rural? There are horses and cows down the street but my parents have neighbors. Does that help?
Regardless, my parents live in the strange murky divide between wild and human. That borderland where houses move into traditional migration zones. And so when we ski out of our front door, we can get into the woods very very quickly.
And in the woods it is quiet and there is deep snow. Its so cold, 3 degrees cold, that the creek has frozen and mini ice damns have formed. The water flows over the ice giving the light a mysterious green-blue color. It is unnatural looking. Water shouldn’t flow over ice. The only colors are dark green and white, mostly white. The snow has built up on the trees because there hasn’t been any wind. And in the quiet, stark and beautiful winter wonderland someone hung Christmas ornaments.
On assorted trees along the trail someone put blue and green and pink and red and gold Christmas globes. They sparkled and reflected and stood out against the simple pallet of snow and tree. It was a little like finding a lamp post in the middle of the woods. And the farther we went the more globes we saw. No foot prints led to them, which didn’t really mean anything since it hadn’t stopped snowing but added an additional level of mystery. It was something that if I saw in a movie would feel cheap and contrived. But the farther we went and the more brightly colored symbols of Christmas cheer we saw, the more it felt like a dream. And even though we hadn’t gone through a wardrobe it was a little like magic because someone had taken the time to decorate the trees along this trail. For no real reason. Just because it would be beautiful.
***
Sometimes when it snows hard enough my family can cross country ski out our front door. There is less than a mile between my parents house and path along the creek that is great for mountain biking/ dog walking/ assorted outdoor activities. All that lies between are gravely roads. And when it snows hard enough the ski-destroying gravel is covered.
Which happened this winter.
The house I grew up in (which I am struggling to call “my parents house” as opposed to “home” in some effort to force myself to at least verbally leave Montana behind) is on the outskirts of town. I think you could call it a suburb except suburbs don’t really exist in Montana. Borderline rural? There are horses and cows down the street but my parents have neighbors. Does that help?
Regardless, my parents live in the strange murky divide between wild and human. That borderland where houses move into traditional migration zones. And so when we ski out of our front door, we can get into the woods very very quickly.
And in the woods it is quiet and there is deep snow. Its so cold, 3 degrees cold, that the creek has frozen and mini ice damns have formed. The water flows over the ice giving the light a mysterious green-blue color. It is unnatural looking. Water shouldn’t flow over ice. The only colors are dark green and white, mostly white. The snow has built up on the trees because there hasn’t been any wind. And in the quiet, stark and beautiful winter wonderland someone hung Christmas ornaments.
On assorted trees along the trail someone put blue and green and pink and red and gold Christmas globes. They sparkled and reflected and stood out against the simple pallet of snow and tree. It was a little like finding a lamp post in the middle of the woods. And the farther we went the more globes we saw. No foot prints led to them, which didn’t really mean anything since it hadn’t stopped snowing but added an additional level of mystery. It was something that if I saw in a movie would feel cheap and contrived. But the farther we went and the more brightly colored symbols of Christmas cheer we saw, the more it felt like a dream. And even though we hadn’t gone through a wardrobe it was a little like magic because someone had taken the time to decorate the trees along this trail. For no real reason. Just because it would be beautiful.
posted by Lark(e) at 11:06 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home