An unfamiliar season

It was a familiar trail in a place I had been to over and over, yet this time I recognized nothing.

It had the same starting point, the same ending, the same rhythm of walking, yet nothing was the same. Sounds were muffled. Colors were erased into white. The only smell was the cold.

A familiar place in an unfamiliar season made this a journey I didn’t quite expect.

Strapping my hiking boots into snowshoes changed my cadence into a duck-footed waddle, slowly easing into a more natural gait with time. Graceful? Not hardly. Practical? Definitely.

The 400 or more inches of snow beneath my feet elevated my perspective, making me eye level with the tops of the trees. The driving snow shortened my view, forcing me to focus on the world immediately around me, which I realized I often miss, distracted by the distant landscape or the hope of a view.

Today it was about the journey, and however far I went, even a short trek, made it a good beginning. I had finally gained the courage and the momentum to experience one of the places I love in a season that makes me feel more mortal than any other.

More and more I recognize that with each passing moment this same mortality tightens its grip, making me aware that now is the time: to try new things, to explore, to grow, to listen, to seek, and to live.

Winter is my wilderness. An unfamiliar season which could keep me inside, if I let it.

Perhaps growing older is also my wilderness, with more than half a century behind me, and who knows how much ahead? This unknown landscape could keep me from living, if I let it.

Huh. A familiar place in an unfamiliar season made this a journey I didn’t quite expect.

Or want to end.