I have long suspected...

I have long suspected that there is much more to see. 

Winter, my nemesis, hangs in the air and hardens the earth, it strips the trees and plays hide and seek with the sun. 

Winter, I count the days to your waning and my freedom.  But my scoffing has made me suspicious that you may possess magic I am blind to.  I have come to suspect it is possible that I am missing your wonder – blinded by my efforts to look beyond you.

I have worn the mask in your name.

I should venture into you, but I am uncomfortable.  I should venture outside of myself, but I am uncomfortable. 

I was given snowshoes in January.  For most of your season, you have provided too much snow for me to use them, snow that fell on the wrong day of my week, frozen air rushing at its heels.  This week I answered your invitation.  I found myself in a park with a friend walking on the banks of a river I had not visited, even in the heat.  I was warm laboring across the frozen ground.  Everything around us was still.  We encountered only evidence that others had crossed before us, their tracks sealed in the crunchy white surface. 

Here it was.  Ice and water and wood and tan prairie grasses and no sound at all.  The magic I had come to wonder at. 

It was here after all, here, while I sat on the other side of closed windows, scolding.  A private world in plain sight that only those brave or insightful enough dare to see – the lucky ones.  I count myself lucky this week.  Put on shoes and go.

With gratitude,

Joanna