From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year, there has been no snow, and so no trigger for the long, winding walk . . . the walk that lets my mind wander and surrender worry and dream the next turn.
Writing it this way, I see the welcome of the snow-walk is that the snow tells me when to take it. A storm interrupts and says, “Now.” Whatever work had occupied me at that moment must wait unfinished. (If I had had to schedule a time for review, it would not have been then.) The roads are impassable. No one will question the instant deferral of other tasks. Go then for hours through the woods and creek or along the city streets.
As I roam, I’d inventory the previous awards of snow and of their walks and of my situations at those times. I’d tie markers on my memories like the fluorescent ribbons on stakes, the surveyors waypoints. Think back and see the changes of path upon the peculiar timing of the snowfalls. Those hours prove to have been each the perfect time.
This morning revealed a snow overnight. Not much really, but the trees are all coated and the ground white.
Pardon me, but I have to go now.
(C) 2017 Bryan Dubois