Trudging toward joy

On the first good snow day, everyone is going snowshoeing. I’m up in Massachusetts for a holiday trip, gazing at a new field of fluff, watching a motley group tromp away. Woolen hats and thick gloves and waterproof gaiters over waddling feet and wide grins mixed with a little fear but only the right amount. What fun! For them. One injured knee won’t let me join and I’m blue. Standing at the edge of the winter wonderland in the Berkshires in an old black parka, I’m a black-and-blue splotch on a canvas of white. Bah humbug. I wave goodbye and walk along a newly salted stretch of road safe in my sturdy boots. The others disappear like happy animals running wild, unleashed from the usual trajectory of straight and narrow. I hate them for a moment, the people and their dumb shoes. Bundledup behemoths trudging.

I walk and I remember snows of the past wading deep to my waist and laughing in giant fits and snowmen and snowwomen and the light at the beginning of the day on the crisp top layer and staying outdoors shivering until the last rays coat the land.

I remember downhill skiing until the final shush of the day perched at the top of the longest run letting the sun bake my cool face and drinking in me and nature, nature and me, us. The joy of us. I remember cross-country skiing the first time, landing flat on my back, being the last in the pack and yet trying again and again, a mess of clumps and puddles.

I remember sledding in round saucers and wooden toboggans and crashing and rolling and I remember building a snow cave in the middle of the Rockies should I get caught in a blizzard, a place I could hide and lick my wounds.

Where’s a snow cave when you need it.

I remember waking up in the morning shocked that so much nature had descended while I slept, the world changing from a dreary cold place to a magical, crystal clean earth of newness, possibility, no footprints on my terra firma, everything mine to begin on again.

In my memory, it’s all still there.

I do see footprints, suddenly, big boots that have ventured off the safe road and marched into the open field. Tracks carved into the snow going this way and that, around in a circle and back again. Whose? Why? Where were they going?

I stare at my knee and I ponder. Do I dare follow? I’m not thinking sledding or skiing or snowshoeing, but certainly, a little trudging couldn’t hurt. Do I dare to sink down into the life I see before me, for however short or long?

I pick up one foot, the other hanging back stabilizing me in the safety of the street, hesitant.

I step. Clumps of snow appear around my ankles, and I charge, well maybe stroll, one glorious plop after another off the straight and narrow.

I close my eyes and drink in the sun, and I feel joy. Waiting right there, that same old joy. Me and nature, nature and me, the joy of us.

One small step forward was all I needed. And everything changed.