I Am Aglow
I live in a rather yuppy, unneighbourly-neighbourhood. There's no fair-trade, boho-haven café down the street from me (athough there is Chapters...). As someone who's always lived in stroller-friendly, artist-flocking leafy-tree kinda hoods, this is a bit of a burn.
How EVER.
I live a five minute walk away from the mountain.
Which means I've been cross-country skiing at every chance I get.
There is really nothing quite like an hour-long zip through the trees on skis to put you back in touch with the pace of nature. Skiing is the most graceful, most elegant winter-sport I can think of. Skating comes a close second, but you can't travel through the woods on skates. A few minutes on skis and you quickly fall into a rythm of breathing and gliding. You can travel noiselessly across all kinds of snow-cloaked terrain, so silent in fact that foxes, cardinals and chipmunks don't dissappear before you pass them on the trail. And you don't need a gas-guzzling, cranky old chair-lift to carry you up some poor treeless mountain.
I hate the fuck out of winter. I just hate being cold. I hate schlepping through the city in boots and twelve-hundred layers of clothes. I hate hiding my face from the wind, and cancelling plans to do fun things because I'd rather not trudge through the stingingly miserable night air.
How EVER.
I love to ski. And the hour-or-so of skiing I can slip into my day is enough to keep me in touch with what's really going on. For beneath the surface of Urban Winter Woe, there is serious elemental thrust going on. The snow ushers in rest for hibernating animals, germination for biennial bulbs, and frustrated percolation for us cabin-fevered humans. Today I went skiing, following the biggest dump of snow this city has had in weeks, possibly all season. The drifts were so deep I was losing my poles in them. The winds were so mightily strong that it was all I could do to stay upright in the open-air parts. As I was approaching a steep downhill from atop an exposed part of the mountain, overlooking the chalet and Beaver lake, I was struck with a new awareness. I suddenly realized how overwhelmingly WHITE everything was. The snow was gusting in my face like a sand-storm, and I was all but fighting my way through a wall of wind. The trees were waving frantically. The city-sounds were muffled against the powerful wails, which were so loud I could barely hear my own breath. But everything was white. Mother Nature was up to some kinda spell, that was for sure. But if all this white was any indication, it was a redemptive spell, and it cast a purity - angelic-ness even - to the frantic, flailing snow-storm raging on.
In short, I got on the rest of my day, working against deadlines and doing my puttery little research, baked some cookies and vaccumed the apartment. But since my ski, I've felt a little bit more in touch with the seeming-inconvenience of this much-hated season. I feel like I learned something today about winter.
That mountain has been teaching me since I was born. It's a huge part of my childhood, and a touchstone in my life. Aparently it has a high concentration of chrystal in its geological composition. According to a healing-stone-hippy acquaintance of mine, it's a magic mountain.
If that's the case, I'm happy as heck to live where I live.
How EVER.
I live a five minute walk away from the mountain.
Which means I've been cross-country skiing at every chance I get.
There is really nothing quite like an hour-long zip through the trees on skis to put you back in touch with the pace of nature. Skiing is the most graceful, most elegant winter-sport I can think of. Skating comes a close second, but you can't travel through the woods on skates. A few minutes on skis and you quickly fall into a rythm of breathing and gliding. You can travel noiselessly across all kinds of snow-cloaked terrain, so silent in fact that foxes, cardinals and chipmunks don't dissappear before you pass them on the trail. And you don't need a gas-guzzling, cranky old chair-lift to carry you up some poor treeless mountain.
I hate the fuck out of winter. I just hate being cold. I hate schlepping through the city in boots and twelve-hundred layers of clothes. I hate hiding my face from the wind, and cancelling plans to do fun things because I'd rather not trudge through the stingingly miserable night air.
How EVER.
I love to ski. And the hour-or-so of skiing I can slip into my day is enough to keep me in touch with what's really going on. For beneath the surface of Urban Winter Woe, there is serious elemental thrust going on. The snow ushers in rest for hibernating animals, germination for biennial bulbs, and frustrated percolation for us cabin-fevered humans. Today I went skiing, following the biggest dump of snow this city has had in weeks, possibly all season. The drifts were so deep I was losing my poles in them. The winds were so mightily strong that it was all I could do to stay upright in the open-air parts. As I was approaching a steep downhill from atop an exposed part of the mountain, overlooking the chalet and Beaver lake, I was struck with a new awareness. I suddenly realized how overwhelmingly WHITE everything was. The snow was gusting in my face like a sand-storm, and I was all but fighting my way through a wall of wind. The trees were waving frantically. The city-sounds were muffled against the powerful wails, which were so loud I could barely hear my own breath. But everything was white. Mother Nature was up to some kinda spell, that was for sure. But if all this white was any indication, it was a redemptive spell, and it cast a purity - angelic-ness even - to the frantic, flailing snow-storm raging on.
In short, I got on the rest of my day, working against deadlines and doing my puttery little research, baked some cookies and vaccumed the apartment. But since my ski, I've felt a little bit more in touch with the seeming-inconvenience of this much-hated season. I feel like I learned something today about winter.
That mountain has been teaching me since I was born. It's a huge part of my childhood, and a touchstone in my life. Aparently it has a high concentration of chrystal in its geological composition. According to a healing-stone-hippy acquaintance of mine, it's a magic mountain.
If that's the case, I'm happy as heck to live where I live.