Winter memories are stored separately from the rest. In a special box whose flaps are worn and corners crushed for all the revisiting. I suppose similar to other seasons I can recall visceral experiences, but winter memories always capture some deeper sense of a knowing quiet. I feel safe.
New England was slow to gather her frosty friends this year. Freezing temps came to the table early enough but snow only ambled in with the start of February. I, for one, was glad to see it. I worry when it holds out too long, like a mother waiting for her adolescent child to return. It’s not curfew yet but still, there is no better reassurance than confirmation of present and accounted for. Things are back to normal. For the time being at least.
I could watch snowfall for hours. No matter if a sideways wall of white or a wispy, snow globe-like flurry, the longer and the more the better. A forced capture of my imagination. A calming of the external vibrations. Slow down. Stay put. Keep safe. And I do.
Until I feel pulled to the woods. Magic part two.
The dogs in gear, fluorescent orange against the bright white of the snow. I can keep track of them better this way. Freed to roam about the tangle of downed limbs and other off trail shenanigans. And I too, am free. “First Tracks” a bestowed honor to my fortitude for making it out earlier than any other fearsome wanderer. Besides the bird prints or maybe the deer, it is left to me to shape the path from my back door down into the wooded forest below our property until I find the spot where the trails merge and another set of human prints guide me to the loop trail.
I follow what was laid out before me. Measuring the size of my footfalls against the ones I find in the snow. The discipline to match the stride and not wreck the simplicity of only one chain of prints. But eventually I fall behind, my pace slower, skirting a slushy puddle my predecessor must have stepped in or opting for the upper fork in the trail even though it all comes back together some hundred feet ahead. Maybe I get defiant or individualistic. Maybe my mind just wanders and I stop paying attention. Which happens in the quiet of a wood just after a snowfall.
Eventually too, the other prints disappear. I lose track of where they veered off and I get temporarily unnerved at the loss. Not that I necessarily wanted to share in the first place but since we were sharing, I had accepted the comfort of the tracks themselves. A traceable sense of beginning and end. A companion in the wilderness until we parted and I am back to my own memory making.
Is it too big a leap in connection to find the parallels here?
An architect has done hundreds of projects and yet is always returning to strike the first mark on a plan set. A homeowner has lived in multiple homes yet this one, down to its wooden studs, begs for its own magic. And so, we endeavor to lay down our tracks. Giddy over the fresh vibe. Lost in our own thoughts until we bump into others who have come before us with their tales of wonder and worry. We try to match their stride and avoid the places where they fell through the otherwise known path.
At one point we get lost in our own creation. The whimsy of what calls us forward in one way or another and we find that we left the others behind:
“I love this stone but it’s impractical. Is it silly to go for it?”
“There is no way to prove ROI on this one piece, but I want to do it anyway.”
“This trade relationship has been difficult from the start, but we are so far in. Someone else might have fired them but I like them and the work is gorgeous and just what I want.”
“The schedule has gone long but the design process has been so thrilling I don’t want to let go now. I’m still in control, right?”
Unnerving moments discovered too far in. Going back the way we came, laying backwards tracks, we only witness our own retreat. So, we go forward. Keep laying the Fresh Tracks. They are securely ours after all. We have the proof as we leave our mark with each footfall. Our pace. Our stride. Our decision-making. Our magic making, memories of how we got to the delicious ending. Our quiet knowing. For it IS as much the journey.
Let’s go for a walk.
Allison
