Winter Fields

It was sunny and cold on Saturday. I drove out the Berkshires, where the snow was still deep, for a morning cross-country ski. The snow was hard packed like crystallized vanilla frosting. I was soon warm from the exertion and peeled off layers of clothing. I love the rhythm of the sport; pump, pump, pump with the legs, plant pull, plant pull, plant pull with the arms. The cold air flooded my body, flushing out the dullness, pouring in the prana to every cell. I moved ever so slowly but steadily up, up, up the steep trail that wound its way through the wintering woods. Then in a flash, down the the slope, picking up speed, fretting all the way, "Will I fall?? Will I fall???"

The trail broke through the woods into a large south facing field that was flooded with sun. I carved a path through the vanilla frosting snow through a parallel stand of gnarly oaks. There was a stone wall and a depression in the earth paved with stones where a house had once stood. Thorny scrub poked up through the snow where the it was shallow. When I stopped moving, the silence was stunning. Oh to live in the old farm house by the field embraced by the lichen splashed stone wall. I pulled up my sleeves to take in more sun.